Protests and violence fill the streets of Haiti's capital after presidential vote results

Record ID: 75147

  • Title: Protests and violence fill the streets of Haiti's capital after presidential vote results
  • Date: 1st December 2016
  • Summary: PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI (NOVEMBER 30, 2016) (REUTERS) PROTESTERS MARCHING AND CHANTING AGAINST PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RESULTS TYRES BURNING POLICE OFFICER HOLDING GUN PROTESTERS WALKING PROTESTER TAKING DOWN CAMPAIGN POSTER FOR WINNER JOVENEL MOISE PROTESTERS WALKING RIOT POLICE BEING HIT BY ROCK POSTER FOR FANMI LAVALAS PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE MARYSE NARCISSE WHO LOST ELECTION (SOUNDBITE) (Creole) CHILER LOUISDOR, MEMBER OF FANMI LAVALAS PARTY, SAYING: "We of the Fanmi Lavalas Party have two paths. The legal path through which we will contest results and we are organizing peaceful, active protests in the streets to say 'no' to this electoral coup, to say 'no' to this oligarchy, 'no' to this minority." PROTESTERS WALKING RIOT POLICE OFFICERS WALKING DOWN MIDDLE OF STREET POLICE FIRING WATER ON BURNING TYRES TO CLEAR STREET POLICE TRUCK PUSHING BURNING TYRES TO CLEAR STREET VARIOUS OF CARS DAMAGED BY PROTESTERS (SOUNDBITE) (Creole) UNIDENTIFIED MEMBER OF FANMI LAVALAS PARTY, SAYING "Lavalas (party members) and Pitit Dessalines (party members) are revolting because we didn't vote for PHTK (the party of winner Jovenel Moise)." CAR WITH BACK WINDOW BROKEN OUT BY PROTESTERS PROTESTERS FILLING STREET POLICE RUNNING DOWN STREET PROTESTERS WALKING DOWN STREET
  • Embargoed: 16th December 2016 00:58
  • Keywords: violence protests clashes Fanmi Lavalas
  • Location: PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI
  • City: PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI
  • Country: Haiti
  • Reuters ID: LVA0015B1WAWZ
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Protesters marched through Haiti's capital city of Port-au-Prince on Wednesday (November 30), as losing candidates rejected preliminary results of an election that indicated banana exporter Jovenel Moise would be the next president.
    Moise, who ran for former President Michel Martelly's Bald Heads Party, won with 55.67 percent of votes cast in the November 20 election, the electoral council said on Monday. The result avoids a second round run-off next year.
    Police used tear gas on protesters at a march called by Fanmi Lavalas, the leftist party of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide which called the results an "electoral coup."
    "We of the Fanmi Lavalas Party have two paths. The legal path through which we will contest results and we are organizing peaceful, active protests in the streets to say 'no' to this electoral coup, to say 'no' to this oligarchy, 'no' to this minority," said activist Chiler Louisdor.
    Since the election, the United States Embassy issued reports of demonstrations, gunshots and burning tires in downtown Port-au-Prince and Malpasse, a town close to the border with the Dominican Republic. Haitian national police also reported protests in La Saline.
    Moise, the front-runner in a scrapped election last year, received a majority of votes, meaning there is no need for a second round.
    Jude Celestin, a mechanical engineer who had led a government construction firm, came in second. He received just under a fifth of the vote.
    Moise Jean-Charles, a leftist senator, netted 11 percent, while Narcisse, running for Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas party, won around 9 percent, the preliminary results showed.
    The Organization of American States, which had been among the international observers of the election, said the results corresponded with its data.
    However, turnout was low and 10 percent of sheets tallying votes were thrown out because of irregularities. In a country of 10 million people, Jovenel Moise received just 600,000 votes.
    Three people on the nine-member electoral council did not sign the report declaring Moise the winner, although the council's president did not say who had abstained.
    Those elements fuelled a universal condemnation of the results from the losing candidates, who have 72 hours to contest before the final results are released on December 29.
    Representatives of the second and third place candidates have already said they would challenge the results.
    Results showed the top four candidates finished in the same order as they had in the 2015 election which was scrapped over voter fraud and sparked violent protests.
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