Haitian Election Celebration Clogs Capital

Conga lines of jubilant Haitians thronged the dusty, trash-filled streets of the capital Thursday to celebrate a negotiated conclusion to their troubled Feb. 7 presidential election that gave poor-man’s idol Rene Preval a first-round victory.

But the decision by Haitian electoral officials to remove 85,000 blank ballots from the equation, allowing Preval to clear the 50% hurdle and avoid a runoff, angered the candidates who trailed a distant second and third.

Although both conceded that Preval had widely outpolled them, they lambasted the reconfigured tabulation as foreign-instigated capitulation to violence and said it was likely to cast a pall of illegitimacy over Preval’s tenure.

The 3 a.m. announcement by the Provisional Electoral Council eased a 10-day escalation of tensions among voters. They had watched Preval’s share soar to more than 60% in early counting, then steadily dwindle as ballots arrived from far-flung regions with other preferences, amid mounting indications of fraud and ballot box stuffing.

Preval was down to 48.7% early Monday when seething anger at what many perceived to be a conspiracy boiled over into violence. Preval supporters erected barricades of flaming tires and junked cars and brought the capital to a standstill. One protester was killed by gunfire, several others were wounded and the entire nation shuddered at the vision of a return to the deadly chaos that surrounded former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s flight to African exile in February 2004.

Preval appealed to his supporters Tuesday to demonstrate “peacefully and intelligently,” and the menacing disruptions ceased. But the specter of uncontrolled violence if a first-round Preval victory was denied compelled U.N. officials, foreign diplomats and Haiti’s appointed interim government to huddle at the National Palace for days in search of a compromise.

Preval ended up with 51.15% of the 2.2 million votes cast. His political party, Lespwa, which means hope in Creole, was poised to win several seats in a two-house legislature that will be widely divided, encouraging coalition-building and collaboration.

The 63-year-old president-elect kept a low profile after the electoral council’s decision, celebrating with aides and family until dawn but declining to speak to supporters or reporters gathered outside his campaign headquarters all day Thursday. Aides said Preval was planning a nationwide address today.

Critics of the compromise showed no reluctance to make their views known.

“We are the victims of a coup d’etat of ballots,” fumed Leslie Manigat, the 75-year-old former president who trailed Preval with 11.8% of the vote and would have been the man to face him in a March 19 runoff. “A second round would have been a learning experience for this country. But instead, violence was rewarded.”

Charles Henri Baker, the white owner of a garment factory whose candidacy was a lightning rod for the class and race issues that rile Haiti, accused the electoral council of going “above and around the law.”

“Something should be very clear: This was not an election, it was a selection,” said Baker, 50, who ran third with 7.9% of the vote.

“Now every time there’s a problem, Mr. Preval’s partisans will take to the streets and we’ll have to do what they want. That’s a scary thought,” Baker said.

The widespread revelry in every neighborhood of sprawling Port-au-Prince testified to the strength of Preval’s popularity, and flickers of resentment of the elite permeated their celebrations.

“We defeated you, Madame Baker! Preval is our president!” young men chanted at a white woman who drove alongside a crowd that was dancing and pounding out voodoo rhythms in one impoverished neighborhood.

“The election would have been better if the bourgeoisie hadn’t tried to steal it,” said Monique Jean-Louis, a candy vendor perched precariously on a grimy asphalt patch between a cinderblock wall and smoke-belching truck traffic.

Those in Preval’s constituency, somewhat broader than Aristide’s army of slum-dwellers but still largely composed of the illiterate and the poor, insisted that they had their eyes open about what was possible in the short run in a country with at least 70% unemployment, a daunting incidence of HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, and a virtual absence of infrastructure or institutions.

“We know he can’t give all of the people jobs, but those he can help will help others and it will gradually get better,” said Gretha Lezire, a 40-year-old nurse with two children of her own to support as well as five inherited from dead siblings.

“Preval can’t do anything for the country without the help of the private sector, so he has to find bridges between the people and the bourgeoisie,” said John Peter Hipolyte, a jobless 33-year-old who lamented that he could no longer afford the $50 a month to send his 12-year-old son, Smythe, to school.

Some in the polarized political community welcomed the electoral council’s decision as the start of a healing process. Evans Paul, considered a year ago to be a promising presidential successor, polled only 2% and graciously bowed to Preval as the man who showed that he could take up the cause of representing the masses.

A political scientist with long ties to the private sector, who did not want to be quoted for fear of being seen as a defector, hailed the negotiated outcome as the most equitable solution.

“There aren’t too many people in the country who question that Mr. Preval had strong support from a cross-section of the population,” he said. “The alternative to what we are seeing would have been far worse.”

Representatives of the international community praised the decision as a fresh start for Haiti, which was once the most productive colony in the Caribbean but slid into debt, poverty and despotism after its 1804 independence.

“We want this government to succeed,” said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “This is a chance for a country that has had too few chances.”