ARTICLE - HAITI ANXIOUSLY AWAITS RESULTS

HAITI ANXIOUSLY AWAITS DELAYED VOTE RESULTS
(Global News) - AFP - By Clarens Renois

PORT-AU-PRINCE - Haitian election officials were Wednesday due to unveil presidential poll results, ending months of political uncertainty, to reveal which candidates will contest a delayed run-off.

"We have been working through the night and will continue to work on it this morning, but we are not quite ready," election official Jacques Belzin told AFP, adding he hoped the results would be announced later in the day.

The streets of the capital Port-au-Prince remained calm Wednesday although residents rushed to stock up on food and water, and banks announced they were shutting two hours early, fearful of protests breaking out.

Preliminary results from the November 28 presidential poll released in December sparked several days of riots and unrest, which left five dead in Haitian cities.

"The results could perhaps be released in the early evening," an official from the Haitian electoral commission said, asking to remain anonymous.

The electoral council said last week that final results from the first round of the elections would be announced on Wednesday.

Quake-hit Haiti voted late last year, but more than two months later it remains unclear who will be on the final ballot come March 20 when a new leader is chosen to rebuild the shattered Caribbean nation.

The disputed first round descended into chaos when the ruling party's Jude Celestin was awarded second place ahead of Michel Martelly, a popular singer.

Violent protests followed in December and several people died before President Rene Preval summoned an international vote verification team to check the results amid widespread allegations of fraud.

The Organization of American States (OAS) monitors found enough rigging in Celestin's favor to recommend the results be switched to put Martelly in the run-off against Mirlande Manigat, a 70-year-old former first lady.

Preval and the Haitian electoral commission have come under strong international pressure, led by the United States, to honor the OAS report and make the switch.

The ruling INITE (Unity) party has said it was withdrawing its support for Celestin, but Preval's handpicked protege apparently has refused to sign the necessary documentation to annul his candidacy.

It remains unclear whether the Provisional Electoral Council will allow Celestin to keep his place, change the results to allow Martelly in or possibly even announce a three-way race.

Belzin said the commission had reviewed 106 contested tally sheets, as lawyers for both Martelly and Celestin argued their client had the right to stand in the run-off.

The nation's political turmoil deepened earlier this month when former dictator Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier returned unexpectedly. And in another potential twist, the government said Monday it was ready to issue a new passport to a second ghost from the past, former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Duvalier, whose reemergence has been linked to money troubles and millions of frozen dollars in Switzerland, has been slapped since his return from exile with a slew of lawsuits over alleged rights violations, torture and embezzlement.

Duvalier has not picked a side in the political showdown, but older Haitians remember his 15-year rule as a time of repression when opponents were rounded up by the feared Tonton Macoutes secret police and silenced.

Aristide, a former priest who was Haiti's first democratically elected president and is a sworn enemy of Duvalier, has said he wants to return home as soon as possible from exile in South Africa.

Results of the March 20 run-off are due to be announced on April 16, according to the delayed timetable proposed last week by the electoral commission.