Haiti Votes Amid Delays, Confusion : Caribbean: Legislative election--the first since military coup--seen as peaceful despite scattered incidents of violence. Ballot count expected to take a week or more.

Haitians coped with minor violence, long delays and widespread administrative problems Sunday to vote in elections considered crucial to the country’s slow establishment of a working democracy.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Stanley Schrager called the vote “a significant milestone in the history of this nation,” noting that “what’s important to us is not the results but the process. What’s really important is that these elections be held.”

The successful electoral process, at least as defined by U.S. officials and other diplomats, represented several firsts in Haiti’s troubled 191-year history.

It was the first legitimate election since a military coup overthrew democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Sept. 30, 1991, less than a year after he took office. And, because the army has been disbanded, it was the first vote held without fear or hope of military interference.

After the results are finalized sometime next week and a July 23 parliamentary runoff is completed, Haiti will have its first truly constitutional government since Aristide was driven from office. In the months since he returned to power in October on the strength of a U.S. military intervention, Aristide has ruled largely by emergency decree because Parliament’s term had expired.

With the next presidential election not scheduled until December, at issue Sunday were 18 of 27 Senate seats and all 83 seats for the Chamber of Deputies, in addition to 561 community boards and mayors and council members for 133 municipalities.

The voting took place under the protection of 6,000 U.N. troops and 900 international police observers. The presence of the troops as well as the generally patient and peaceful nature of most voters limited violence to a few scattered incidents.

Officials said at least three voting sites were forced to postpone balloting until later in the week because election materials were stolen or vandalized.

One large demonstration in front of Port-au-Prince’s City Hall required the intervention of U.N. troops, but journalists at the scene said there was little violence, just pushing and shouting.

In addition, voters in cities and isolated villages throughout Haiti faced long and slow-moving lines; polling places that couldn’t be found or opened hours late; confusing, incomplete ballots, and illegal attempts to influence the voting.

Altogether, there were 10,558 candidates representing 28 parties competing for the estimated 3.5 million voters who had registered for the balloting.

Because all votes have to be counted by hand and then retabulated in district offices, election officials say formal results won’t be known for at least seven to 10 days. Officials pointed out that it took eight days to officially announce Aristide’s election in 1990.

Nevertheless, most officials, observers and diplomats predicted that Aristide’s party, the Lavalas Political Organization, will win majorities in the local balloting.

The president’s supporters also are expected to control the two parliamentary houses, but that won’t be confirmed until after the July runoff.

Even without Sunday’s problems, the voting process was difficult. Each voter was given four ballots of different sizes. Some had pictures of the candidates, others used party symbols to represent the candidates, and some had neither.

In one of the most serious breaches of the rules, the names of several registered candidates were dropped from the ballots. Officials blamed the U.S. printers for the problems.

In the northeast--the nation’s least populated region with an estimated 166,301 registered voters--”the process has virtually come to a standstill,” said a statement from the Organization of American States.

The OAS said all deputy candidates there were boycotting the election process and voter turnout was poor.

In Cabaret, a city about 25 miles north of Port-au-Prince, voting that was to have taken place in a large school had to be moved to a tiny building Sunday morning when officials couldn’t find a key for the school.

Jean Baptiste Deville, the president of the local electoral council, said that only about 40 of 420 registered voters had shown up by midafternoon as a result of the foul-up.

In another polling place north of Cabaret, voters complained of waiting more than six hours to cast their ballots, a common complaint at more than two dozen voting sites during the day.

In the minds of some U.S. congressional critics as well as Aristide opponents, these problems represented fundamental flaws that raised serious questions about the legitimacy of the process and its results.

Apart from the local anti-Aristide politicians who lag far behind him in popularity, most of that criticism came from the International Republican Institute, an agency of the U.S. Republican Party.

In a report issued a day before the voting, the institute cast doubt on the integrity of the presiding Provisional Electoral Commission and its Aristide-appointed president, Anselm Remy.

Because of poor organization, inadequate training of poll workers and possible political bias, the report said, some candidates could not participate and many Haitians could be disenfranchised.

Nevertheless, the people directly affected by the mistakes and confusion--the voters--didn’t seem to be particularly concerned.

“It is my obligation to vote,” Maria Jose Menajed said as she stood in the broiling sun outside a Cite Soleil voting booth. “I am voting to give hope to the government, and so far I think everything is fair.”

Most international monitors and Haitian experts said that, by day’s end, the process had worked and the result was a credible and legitimate election.

While the election of Aristide supporters was a foregone conclusion--one diplomat said that if “Aristide wanted his dog elected, his dog would be elected”--Sunday’s vote was still considered a barometer of what kind of government will control Haiti after his term expires in February.

A key election in this regard was the race for mayor of Port-au-Prince, which had three pro-Aristide candidates in serious contention: incumbent Mayor Evans Paul, the wildly popular leftist folk singer Manno Charlemagne and Micha Gaillard, a centrist backed by progressive business people.

Charlemagne, who has Aristide’s tacit support and the open backing of several presidential hopefuls, represents the radical populist element among Aristide’s backers.

If he defeats or even holds Paul to a slim victory, that will probably doom the incumbent mayor’s presidential chances and also strengthen those in Aristide’s camp who want a more radical government.