ARTICLE - ELECTIONS GOING WELL - UN SAYS

HAITI ELECTIONS 'GOING WELL': UN MISSION CHIEF
(AFP)

PORT-AU-PRINCE – Haiti's key national elections are "going well" with little violence and only a few minor administrative problems that should not hamper turnout, chief UN peacekeeper Edmond Mulet said Sunday.

"In general everything is going well, everything is peaceful," Mulet, the head of the UN peacekeeping mission MINUSTAH which is helping to police the elections, told AFP. "I see a great passion of citizens and from citizens for democracy in this country. MINUSTAH is here. There is no reason to be frightened. It's an electoral celebration," Mulet said.

"The decision of the people will be respected. There are some small administrative problems, but no big problem that is going to reduce participation."

"It is very important that Haiti gets a legitimate government to carry out the (quake) reconstruction, especially here in Leogane which was 90 percent destroyed" by January's devastating earthquake, he said.

Mulet said there had been some "minor incidents" in the northern city of Desdunes.

The mayor there, Wesner Archelus, a member of an opposition party, described a hostage-taking incident which left several people injured and caused him to take refuge in a police station.

"There was shooting all night. Clashes erupted in a voting station where an election monitor from the ruling party was briefly taken hostage," he told AFP.

More than 4.7 millions Haitians are voting in Sunday's national elections to choose a successor to President Rene Preval and elect more than 100 lawmakers around the country.

Campaigning was marred by deadly incidents of violence between rival political factions.