Turnout Low as Haitians Go to Polls : Politics: Displeasure with candidates, Aristide’s exit keep many away. Results due next week.

Comien Evelyne got up early Sunday morning to be among the first to vote in this city of decaying gingerbread houses about 20 miles west of Port-au-Prince.

As it turns out, she need not have hurried. In just their second democratic presidential election, Haitians already seem to find the novelty wearing thin.

With ruling Lavalas party standard-bearer Rene Preval almost a shoo-in despite a 14-candidate race and the most important opposition parties boycotting the election, Haitians generally did not bother to vote. Streets were nearly deserted except for the patrols of U.N. peacekeeping forces, observer groups and reporters.

There was at least one incident of violence, but it appeared isolated. Early Sunday, unidentified gunmen fired shots at U.N. peacekeepers in the town of Petit-Goave, 35 miles west of Port-au-Prince, U.N. officials said. No one was reported hurt.

Foreign diplomats worried about whether even half of the 3.7 million registered voters would cast ballots in this country where, less than a decade ago, people risked death if they voted.

Sources close to the Provisional Electoral Commission estimated that about one-third of the Haitians registered to vote actually cast ballots. Voting was higher in the provinces than in Port-au-Prince, where only about a fourth of those registered voted. Official returns are not expected until next week.

“The candidates really did not have convincing campaigns,” said one bored official in the town of Kenscoff at precinct offices across the street from the church where President Jean-Bertrand Aristide declared his candidacy in 1990.

Aristide, who took two-thirds of the vote in a 1990 election that had nearly 100% turnout, was ousted by a military coup seven months after taking office in 1991 and restored to power three years later by U.S. troops. In the year since his return, Haitians have voted four times in various elections, and voter fatigue appears to have set in.

“I just don’t have time” to vote, said Linda Pierre, a 22-year-old street vendor.

In the gardens of fashionable Petionville in the foothills overlooking Port-au-Prince, the upper class--never Aristide supporters--voiced skepticism. “We are supposed to vote for Preval, but I have never even heard his voice on the radio,” said one woman, who asked that her name not be published. “At least we knew who Aristide was.”

Even one of the precinct presidents said he will not vote. “It is a personal decision, and I can’t see that voting does any good,” said Pierre Jean Jacques, a 23-year-old accounting student. He said he is serving as a precinct official because he was promised 80 gourdes, about $5.

The immensely popular Aristide is forbidden by the constitution from seeking a consecutive term. But because Aristide spent three years of his five-year term in exile from a military dictatorship, his supporters had felt cheated as Sunday’s election approached. The highway to Leogane is still strewn with banners and graffiti demanding “Aristide for three more years.”

But the president declared Friday that he plans to vote for Preval, his close friend and aide, and many party faithful have transferred their loyalty to Preval.

“What Aristide started, Preval has to finish,” said Emanuel Maxime, a 37-year-old father of six.

Aristide’s greatest accomplishment as president, Maxime said, was disbanding the army and replacing it with civilian police.

He has also eased racial tensions, said the dark-skinned Maxime, speaking in Creole to a light-skinned translator. “Before Aristide, it would have been awkward for somebody like me to talk to somebody like you in the street. Now, it’s OK.”

While foreign diplomats predict that Aristide’s resignation from the priesthood and impending marriage to a lawyer from an upper-class family will strain his almost mystical bond to his followers, voters appeared to accept his decision.

“You have to make your life,” Maxime said.

And here in Leogane, where voters cast their ballots in a town hall papered with Preval posters, 30-year-old Evelyne was already beginning to feel nostalgic for the outgoing president.

“Even though he could not do the things he was trying to do, we can still like him anyway,” she said, adding quickly, “For a better country, this [election] is what has to be done. If I want change, I must vote for Lavalas. Preval is Aristide, Aristide is Preval.”