ARTICLE - FEAR OF FRAUD JOLT VOTE

DEADLY VIOLENCE, FEAR OF FRAUD JOLT VOTE IN TROUBLED HAITI
(AFP) - By Clarens Renois

PORT-AU-PRINCE – Presidential campaigning in quake-stricken Haiti wrapped up Saturday amid deadly electoral violence, concerns of voter fraud, and a cholera outbreak that has yet to peak.Voters will choose a successor to President Rene Preval, who is not running for re-election.

Haitians will also elect 11 of the country's 30 senators and all 99 parliamentary deputies. The new president will be leading the poorest country in the western hemisphere, a nation of around 10 million where 80 percent of the population lives on less than two dollars a day.

Front runners among 18 candidates in the Sunday presidential vote include Jude Celestin, an engineer supported by Preval; academic and former first lady Mirlande Manigat; and Michel Martelly, a popular singer widely known as "Sweet Micky."

The election come as Haiti battles a cholera outbreak that has claimed 1,648 lives and has yet to peak. It is also the first election since a devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake in January killed 250,000 people.

At least one person was killed and several wounded when gunmen opened fire on a rally for presidential candidate Michel Martelly, his spokeswoman said Saturday. Martelly spokeswoman Karine Beauvoir described the late Friday attack as an attempt on the candidate's life.

In earlier electoral violence, two people were shot dead late Monday in Beaumont, a small town in southwestern Haiti, when supporters of Celestin and candidate Charles Henri Baker squared off armed with firearms, rocks and bottles. The violence however does not appear to have dampened the spirits of Haitians who want to vote on Sunday.

A line, twice as long as earlier in the week, snaked down from the police station in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville as people waited for identification cards they need to vote.

"I hope I will get my voting card. It is my duty to vote, it is for my country after the cholera and the earthquake," first-time voter Josue Phanon told AFP.

He added: "I still don't know who I am going to vote for." Posters of Celestin, who rose to prominence when Preval put him in charge of a task force that cleared roads and helped rebuild after the quake, smile down from nearly every street corner in the capital.

Tens of thousands of Haitians gathered for a rally Thursday for Celestin, 48, candidate for the INITE (UNITY) party candidate. The event included nearly four hours of song and dance, and just 10 minutes of political speech.

However Celestin has struggled to shake off the image of being too close to the unpopular Preval. The latest opinion poll gave an eight-point lead to Manigat, a long-time opposition leader and former first lady who is from Haiti's ruling classes but respected for her academic career.

Manigat, an assistant dean at Quisqueya University, is pushing education and promising a break from the corruption-tainted administrations of the past. "This election is not important for me. It's important for the country. Haitians do not want continuity. They want change, to see a rupture from the past," she said in an interview Wednesday with AFP.

On Friday, Manigat accused Celestin's backers of hoarding 500,000 fake ballots and warned that widespread fraud could derail her candidacy. "I am sure to make it to the second round.

Only skullduggery can prevent me from becoming president," she told reporters.

Martelly also alleged "massive fraud" on Friday, blaming officials close to Manigat and Celestin.

The director of Haiti's electoral registry also has voiced fears that widespread fraud could "hijack" the poll results. No candidate is expected to pass threshold of 50 percent of votes needed for an outright victory. The two front-runners are expected to make it through to a January 16 run-off, but nothing is certain in Haiti's political arena.

Campaigning has also been marred by riots in the northern city of Cap-Haitien against UN peacekeepers, accused of introducing cholera into the country. UN peacekeeping mission chief Edmond Mulet offered reassurances on Thursday that the situation was "calm, peaceful, serene and without violence" compared to polls in previous years. The electoral commission said Friday that 4,714,112 people would be eligible to vote in the elections.