MANIGAT, CELESTIN APPEAR HEADED FOR RUNOFF IN HAITI
(Miami Herald) - By Jacqueline Charles and Trenton Daniel
PETIONVILLE - Hundreds of supporters of a popular Haitian musician who did not make it into Haiti's presidential runoff ran through the streets waving his pink poster and sticks Wednesday morning to denounce the preliminary election results.
``They don't want to see Martelly,'' the group of young men chanted as they ran past a public plaza turned into a homeless camp for victims of the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake. Martelly refers to well-known Haitian konpa artist, and one-time part-time Miami resident Michel ``Sweet Micky'' Martelly.
Later, the Associated Press reported that protestors had set fire to the headquarters of the ruling political party, Unity, whose candidate Jude Célestin edged out Martelly for a place in a January runoff election.
Flames were leaping from Unity party headquarters and several fire trucks were on the scene trying to control the blaze.
Martelly supporters also demanded the departure of the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission known as MINUSTAH. Sporadic rock and bottle throwing also were reported in Haiti's second largest city, Cap-Haitien in the north, where anti-UN protests erupted just a few weeks ago.
At least one airline, American, cancelled flights to Haiti Wednesday.
The protests come after a night of sporadic gunfire and protesters set tires ablaze in Port-au-Prince after election officials announced Haitian President Réne Préval's handpicked successor, Célestin, will head to a runoff with former first lady Mirlande Manigat while Martelly will not.
The U.S. embassy immediately questioned the results saying ``like others, the government of the United States is concerned by the Provisional Electoral Council's announcement of preliminary results.''
The statement said the results were ``inconsistent with the published results'' of the National Election Observation Council, which had more than 5,500 observers. It had Martelly headed into a runoff with Manigat. But the results were based on just 15 percent of the returns.
With concerns of more violence escalating, the international community was scheduled to meet Wednesday morning. The mood remained tense Wednesday and some streets throughout the capital were impassable because of barricades erected Tuesday night.
Manigat, a longtime opposition leader, received 31.37 percent of the vote in Haiti's chaotic and highly contested Nov. 28 election; Célestin, former head of the government road building agency, 22.48 percent, and Martelly received 21.84 percent, election officials said.
That would theoretically place Manigat and Célestin, whom Préval backed, into a Jan. 16 runoff in the country's most competitive elections in more than two decades.
But with just .64 percentage points separating Célestin, 48, and Martelly, 49, the road to the presidency may not be that clear cut.
A spokesman for Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) made no mention of the runoff when preliminary results were announced.
As word filtered out about the results, reports of rock throwing and gunshots filtered out in the capital and groups of Martelly supporters barricaded many streets in suburban Petionville with smoldering tires. Young men burned Célestin posters while others demanded that they ``arrest Préval and burn the CEP.''
``The situation is very complicated,'' said Pierre Esperance, the head of the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights, which issued a report detailing what it called ``massive fraud'' in the presidential and legislative elections.
Just over 1 million out of 4.7 million voters cast ballots in the elections.
This will be the first time since the fall of the Duvalier regime in 1986 that Haitians will participate in a runoff presidential election.
Célestin's INITE coalition had initially claimed that it had won in the first round with 52 percent of the vote.
But the international community urged the electoral commission members to heavily scrutinize suspicious ballots after reports that supporters stuffed ballots in some voting centers and intimidated voters. Electoral officials said 86 out of 1,500 voting centers were vandalized, disrupting voting.
A dozen of the 19 candidates on the presidential ballots, including Martelly and Manigat, also alleged ``massive fraud'' and demanded that the vote be canceled.
Candidates have 72 hours to challenge the preliminary results.
``These elections need to be annulled. The next step, we meet tomorrow to watch what the reaction is throughout the country,'' said Charles-Henri Baker, a presidential candidate who came in sixth with 2.38 percent of the vote.
Martelly had warned that his supporters would take to the streets if he were eliminated from the runoff. But members of the international community pressed Martelly to go through the legal complaint process.
Manigat declined to comment on the election results, saying she will wait until Wednesday.
Célestin dismissed critics who claim that the results show that he is not popular. He says the figures show exactly the opposite.
His strength, he said, came outside of Haiti's urban areas. ``In the rural areas people don't vote the same as they do in the cities,'' he said.
Many had hoped the preliminary results would have provided greater clarity on helping a quake-ravaged Haiti emerge from its latest crisis.
But the small percentage separating Célestin and Martelly left open the possibility that a political compromise could emerge. Since late last week, Haitian lawmakers and constitutionalists have debated the possibility of a three-person runoff.
While polls had predicted that Preval's INITE coalition would win most of the 11 contested Senate seats on the first round, it won just one outright. It is in runoffs in eight other races.
The coalition also won a handful of deputy seats. Préval, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, was seeking to not only control the presidency but also the parliament.
``He's at a very weak point. The only place they (INITE) seem to have some stronghold is in the rural area and some in the south of the country,'' said Robert Fatton, a Haiti expert at the University of Virginia. ``In the major urban areas there is very little support for Preval. A vote against Preval is a vote against Célestin.''
Esperance has called on the electoral council to correct a number of irregularities before the second round. He also said he hopes candidates use the appeals process to uncover potential fraud.
The Organization of American States, which led a joint electoral observation mission with the Caribbean Community, and the U.N. peacekeeping mission both failed in the November elections, he said.
``The massive fraud and violence shows that Haiti took a huge step back in organizing elections,'' he said.
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