Haiti Again Postpones Presidential Voting

Nov 25, 4:36 PM EST


By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU
Associated Press Writer

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AP) -- Haiti's electoral board on Friday again postponed the
first elections since the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, saying
it needs need more time to organize the vote in the impoverished country.

The nine-member Provisional Electoral Council set a new date of Jan. 8 for
presidential and legislative elections, followed by a Feb. 15 runoff.

Council members said they would be unable to set up polling sites by Dec.
27 - the election date announced last week by interim Prime Minister Gerard
Latortue - because of crumbling infrastructure and a lack of trained
election workers in the poorest nation in the Americas.

"Our main responsibility was to make sure that the vote did not turn to a
fiasco," council member Patrick Fequiere told The Associated Press.

The postponement marks the fourth date Haitian authorities have set for
elections to replace the interim government installed after a violent
rebellion forced Aristide into exile in South Africa in February 2004.

International observers have urged Haiti to not hold the elections at the
end of December, warning that the holiday season would result in lower voter
turnout. Observers also said the country needs to do more to stem political
violence that has killed more than 1,500 people since the rebellion.

But the latest postponement means Haiti will now miss an important deadline.

Under the constitution, the five-year term of the president is supposed to
begin and end on Feb. 7, to mark the anniversary of the 1986 demise of the
29-year father-and-son Duvalier dictatorship. The new election date makes it
impossible to have a new government installed by then, election officials
said.

"For practical reasons, it was inevitable that we would miss the deadline,"
Fequiere said.
Council Secretary-General Rosemond Pradel said the council has not finished
printing ballots, distributing more than 2.5 million voter identification
cards and training poll workers. But he vowed that the elections will now
certainly be held on Jan. 8.

"There was a series of practical points that needed to be addressed for the
elections to take place in serene conditions," Pradel said. "These dates are
the real dates, perfectly final and based on serious planing."

Several private organizations expressed similar views in recent days. In a
report released hours before the election was postponed, the Brussels-based
International Crisis Group urged Haiti to delay the balloting.

"Holding these elections over the holidays will mean low turnout and
insufficient international observation," said Alain Deletroz, director of
the group's Latin American Program. "And one month is not enough time to fix
the serious organizational and security problems."

Voters will choose from about 35 candidates for president and hundreds of
candidates for 129 legislative seats.

The revolt that ousted Aristide, a former priest hugely popular among the
poor but who was accused of corruption while in office, was led by former
soldiers linked to the repressive military regimes of Haiti's dark past.


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