HAITI: Second-place candidate Leslie Manigat denounces Rene Preval’s Haitian Presidential election victory as “illegal.”

Record ID: 853632

  • Title: HAITI: Second-place candidate Leslie Manigat denounces Rene Preval’s Haitian Presidential election victory as “illegal.”
  • Date: 17th February 2006
  • Summary: WIDE SHOT CELEBRATIONS IN DOWNTOWN PORT-AU-PRINCE (SOUNDBITE) (French) UNIDENTIFIED SUPPORTER OF RENE PREVAL SAYING: "With Preval, there is security, with Preval there is socialism, with Preval there is peace."
  • Embargoed: 4th March 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Haiti
  • City:
  • Country: Haiti
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVADMK2AHM1KRN3XUWF3QB1HICZ7
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  • Story Text: Haiti declared Rene Preval, a one-time ally of ousted leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the country's next president on Thursday (February 16) after reaching a deal on vote fraud claims that averted a feared outbreak of violence.
    Preval, a former president opposed by the same wealthy elite who helped drive Aristide from power two years ago but passionately supported by the Caribbean country's poor, claimed "massive fraud" in the February 7 election had deprived him of a first-round victory in one of the world's poorest countries.
    Jubilant supporters poured into the streets of Port-au-Prince, dancing and chanting "victory, victory," after the embattled Provisional Electoral Council issued a statement on Haitian radio in the middle of the night.
    "With Preval, there is security, with Preval there is socialism, with Preval there is peace," said one supporter.
    Preval's leading rival in the election, ex-President Leslie Manigat, however, angrily denounced what he called a "coup d'etat through the ballots" and vowed to contest the result.
    "We do not recognize the unilateral and illegal nomination of a man that has been proclaimed as the winner of the competition. This is what we are saying but at the same time, we say emphatically that we as non-violent democrats are going to do absolutely nothing against this establish disorder," said second-place candidate Leslie Manigat.
    Last week's election was the first since Aristide fled into exile in 2004, facing an armed revolt and international pressure to quit after his image as a hero of Haitian democracy was stained by accusations of despotism and corruption.
    Preval's supporters warned they would not allow him to suffer the same fate as Aristide, who was twice elected and twice ousted, first by a military coup and then by the revolt.
    Preval, 63, was president from 1996-2001, between Aristide's two terms, and is the only leader in Haiti's 202-year history to win a democratic election, serve a full term and peacefully hand power to a successor.
    Smiling Preval supporters clogged streets in the chaotic capital, waved posters of their candidate, drove in ecstatic, honking convoys and congregated near the National Palace, where Preval will take office on March 29.
    Brazil, which heads a peacekeeping force of 9,000 U.N. troops and police, brokered the deal to distribute 85,000 ballots that were left blank proportionately among the 33 candidates.
    The blanks, amounting to 4.7 percent of the total, had been included in the total number of votes, in accordance with the law, reducing the final percentage allocated to each candidate. That helped keep Preval's share at
    7 percent -- below the simple majority he needed to avoid a March 19 runoff.
    Many Haitians suspected the blank votes had been stuffed into ballot boxes to force Preval into a second round and outraged supporters on Monday brought Port-au-Prince to a standstill, erecting roadblocks and storming the capital's top luxury hotel.
    Vote fraud suspicions were reinforced on Tuesday when piles of half-burned ballots were found on a garbage dump.
    The agreement over the blank votes lifted Preval's share to 50.9 percent.
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