Burned ballots inflame Haitian election tensions

[seafan]

Burned ballots inflame Haitian election tensions

By Joseph Guyler Delva

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Haiti's electoral council said on Tuesday it would launch an investigation after burned ballots, many cast a week ago for former president Rene Preval, were found still smoldering in a state dump.

Preval, a one-time ally of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide opposed by the same wealthy elite who helped drive Aristide from power two years ago, said on Tuesday that only "massive fraud" had prevented him from winning a first-round victory in the February 7 election.
A few hours later, reports that hundreds and maybe thousands of ballots had been found discarded in a massive garbage dump in Port-au-Prince rippled through the ranks of Preval supporters, triggering anger and demonstrations after nightfall.

"That's absolutely unacceptable," said Rosemond Pradel, secretary-general of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) charged with organizing the impoverished Caribbean country's presidential election -- the first vote since Aristide was ousted by an armed revolt and international pressure to quit.

snip

In the district of Truitier, where the burned ballots were found, angry Preval supporters and local residents denounced what they saw as an attempt to deny them a voice in Haiti's fractious and fragile democracy.
"The people are not going to accept losing their February 7 vote," said a community leader who did not give his name.

He said residents had seen unfamiliar garbage trucks pulling up to the dump since last Thursday but hadn't thought anything of it.
"They took all Preval's ballots. They threw them away in order to prevent the vote of the people from passing. That is a crime," said Rene Monplaisir, an official in the Preval campaign.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-02-15T031941Z_01_N14194834_RTRUKOC_0_US-HAITI-ELECTION-BALLOTS.xml

[mom cat]

1. Review of Haiti votes ordered (Partially burned ballots found in dump)

(A special thanks to wordie who found this one)

Review of Haiti votes ordered

Rene Preval (KRT / Mike Stocker)
Feb 14, 2006



Rene Preval (Newsday / Moises Saman)
Feb 5, 2006
BY LETTA TAYLER
STAFF CORRESPONDENT

February 15, 2006


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Seeking to stem a political crisis that threatened to dissolve into violence, Haiti's interim government last night ordered a review of Feb. 7 presidential election results, which the front-runner said were marred by "gross errors and probably gigantic fraud."

The announcement from Interior Minister Paul Magloire came as boxes of what appeared to be partially burned ballots marked for front-runner René Préval were discovered in a dump on the outskirts of this capital city.

Though it was not clear if the ballots were valid, thousands of Préval supporters took to the streets shouting, "Préval for president! Stop burning the votes!" A day earlier, supporters had paralyzed the country with flaming roadblocks and stormed a posh hotel to accuse the government of vote tampering.

In a news conference here earlier yesterday, Préval, 63, warned that he would contest the final results if he didn't win more than the 50 percent plus one vote, the amount needed to avert a runoff with his closest rival. He said followers would continue to demonstrate but urged them to remain peaceful.

more at:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wohait0215,0,42792.story?track=rss

[xultar]

2. USA involvement I'm sure.

[mom cat]

5. I am so glad that the partially burned ballots were found.

Boy is this shades of Blackwell!

[rman]

3. recommended for true democracy

[mom cat]

6. And somebody tried to burn the evidence!

[wakeme2008]

4. gee why am I not surprised

:grr:

[mom cat]

7. Guess you have gone through deprogramming!

[Gman]

8. Shoulda used Diebold

You know a corporation's got a bad reputation when the corporation's name is synonymous with vote fraud.

[mom cat]

9. This is so important. This iis the smoking gun on vote fraud while there

is still time to do something.

[Matariki]

10. WHY! WHY? Why can't this country leave Haiti alone???

or better yet, help them establish a real democracy and end the heartbreaking poverty there?

[xxqqqzme]

22. imagine if they had oil!?!?!?!

[bemildred]

11. Haiti orders review of poll results

Haiti's interim government has ordered a review of election results amidst allegations of vote fraud and massive street protests by supporters of the leading presidential candidate.

---

The review will be conducted by a commission comprised of the president's office, the electoral council and Preval's party, said Michel Brunache, chief of staff of interim President Boniface Alexandre.

---

Local Telemax TV news on Tuesday night showed smashed white ballot boxes in a rubbish dump, with large wads of ballots strewn about. Ballot after ballot was marked for Preval.

David Wimhurst, a UN spokesman, said the ballots could have come from any of nine polling stations, where a total of 35,000 votes could have been cast, that were trashed in several parts of the country on election day.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F4CB2185-FB13-4E9C-98BA-49CF8B072C9D.htm

[Billy Burnett]

12. Just like Miami-Dade elections - before Diebold

In the 2000 election stacks of filled ballot boxes from predominantly African-American polling places were found floating in canals in Miami-Dade. Plus, many boxes of ballots were never picked up from several African-American polling places in S Miami-Dade - until after the supreme court ruled that there wasn't time to count them. The Metro Dade police were in charge of transporting them to the elections office to be counted. There wasn't any investigation despite vociferous demands.

[seafan]

13. From a Las Tunas, Cuba local newspaper, many details:

snip

The manipulation of the results has been evident and shameless. Two of the members of the Electoral Council have exposed tampering with the vote count. Pierre Richard Duchemin, representative of the Episcopal Conference of the Catholic Church on the electoral body, informed a Haitian radio station that “there has been an insane manipulation of the data, there is no transparency.”

Another of the electoral judges, Patrick Requière, publicly criticized Jacques Bernard, CEP general director, for not consulting with the other members of that agency or of disclosing where he was obtaining the results that he has announced to the press.
On Monday, the presidential candidate Jeune Jean Chavannes, fourth to date in the polls, acknowledged Préval’s win and stated that the situation created is the result of a conspiracy mounted in pursuit of social chaos. Chavannes called for guaranteeing national sovereignty and not bending to base interests as certain people want.

Everyone is pointing to something that is absolutely clear and has been leaked through various channels: Mr. Bernard, general director of the Electoral Council, is fulfilling the U.S. mandate of forcing a second round. A number of analysts have taken it on themselves in the last few days to recall that Préval is not the favorite of the White House given his former links with the deposed President Jean Aristide, removed from power by force by U.S. troops and sent into enforced exile.
In January, The New York Times published a thorough investigation that demonstrates the efforts of the International Republican Institute, closely linked to the Bush administration, and various State Department officials, to destabilize Aristide’s government and expel him from the country.

In the face of the evident attempt to steal away his victory from René Préval, a man of much prestige who has taken great pains to serve the people, his followers – most of them from the poorest barrios of the capital – have taken to the streets in the last three days demanding respect for their vote. Thousands of demonstrators protested yesterday outside the headquarters of the Electoral Council and the government chanting the slogans: “Préval is president” and “Thief, you don’t know how to count,” in a clear reference to the action of the general director of the electoral body. The protesters accused the CEP of manipulating the votes and expressed their opposition to a second round, shouting “We’re not voting twice.”

http://www.periodico26.cu/english/opinion/haiti021506.htm



Haiti, our hearts go out to your people.

[mom cat]

16. Thanks so much for that post. It has been dificult to find information on

the developing situation.

[meganmonkey]

14. Smashed Ballot Boxes Found in Haiti Dump

By ANDREW SELSKY

Associated Press Writer

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - U.N. officials sent troops to a garbage dump near the Haitian capital Wednesday to collect hundreds of smashed ballot boxes and vote count material, more than a week after presidential elections that still have not been decided.

Associated Press reporters saw hundreds of empty ballot boxes, at least one vote tally sheet and several empty bags - numbered and signed by the heads of polling stations - strewn across the fly-infested dump five miles north of Port-au-Prince.

``That's extraordinary,'' U.N. spokesman David Wimhurst said.

Leading candidate Rene Preval has alleged that the Feb. 7 vote was marred by ``massive fraud or gross errors'' designed to leave him just short of the majority needed for a first-round presidential victory.

more>>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5621696,00.html

[mom cat]

18. I am so glad that the smoking gun was found. Thanks for posting this

info.

[meganmonkey]

19. This is a dirty mess

But at least it is starting to look like the guy who won may actually...er...win. Which is better than elections here in the US

:rofl:/:cry:
(we really need a bipolar smilie, the way the world is going these days!)

[Judi Lynn]

15. DU'ers were starting to ask questions about this yesterday, and before.

You remember John Bolton admonished Haiti to, in short, put a sock in it.

From Reuters:

Haiti vote count grinds to halt with fraud probe
15 Feb 2006 18:09:29 GMT

Source: Reuters

~snip~
Crowds poured out on Wednesday from slums like Cite Soleil and Belair, where Preval has won the same passionate support among Haiti's poor masses that formed the backbone of Aristide's political power.

Waving the burned ballot papers and ballot boxes found in the garbage dump, the protesters chanted, "Look what they did with our votes," as they marched past the U.S., Canadian and French embassies.
(snip)

A large proportion of votes, 4.7 percent, were "blank," showing no choice for president among the 33 candidates. But they were included in accordance with the law in the total votes cast and therefore reduced the final percentage allocated to each candidate. Had the blanks not been included, Preval would have held more than 51 percent.

While blank votes are a common way to express a protest vote in sophisticated democracies, few in Haiti can imagine large numbers of their countrymen walking several miles (km) to polling stations and then waiting in line for up to eight hours simply to leave their ballots unmarked.
(snip/)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N15243644.htm



René Garcia Préval

Thanks so much to wordie and mom cat for getting DU'ers informed on this almost anticipated news. Usually, we never actually get to see the proof. Someone slipped up here. (Like the DU'er said earlier in the thread, this wouldn't have happened if someone could have arranged to get Diebold machines down there.)

[Judi Lynn]

17. Update 15: U.N. Guards Dump Where Vote Boxes Found

Update 15: U.N. Guards Dump Where Vote Boxes Found
By ANDREW SELSKY , 02.15.2006, 01:43 PM

U.N. officials sent troops to a garbage dump near the Haitian capital to collect hundreds of smashed ballot boxes and vote count material on Wednesday, more than a week after Haiti's disputed presidential elections.

Associated Press journalists saw hundreds of empty ballot boxes, at least one vote tally sheet and several empty bags, numbered and signed by the heads of polling stations, strewn across the fly infested dump five miles north of the capital.

"That's extraordinary," said U.N. spokesman David Wimhurst.
(snip)

A man picking through the dump, Jean-Ricot Guerrier, said the material was dumped by a truck the day after the election, and that someone had tried to burn the material before rainfall put out the fire.
(snip)

Wimhurst said the ballots could have come from any of nine polling stations across the country that were ransacked on election day, forcing officials to throw out up to 35,000 votes. At least one voting center was destroyed by people tired of waiting in line and others were destroyed by political factions, he said.
(snip/...)

http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/ap/2006/02/15/ap2529291.html



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It might be worthwhile to know more about David Wimhurst, the UN spokesman. He should be more interested in finding out who committed this obvious crime, rather than claiming it's the pro-Préval people, who have far more to lose. The ones who would have the helicopter to quickly drop the ballots and someone to burn them far away from the city would NOT be the the Préval supporters.

The U.N. had its plan already worked out in January to make sure the election was tamper-proof, allegedly:

Ballot boxes, voting booths and practice ballots will be installed in the centers and removed by UN troops at the end of the exercise, said David Wimhurst, a spokesman for the UN mission.
"It will allow us to test the materials and measure the operation's timing," he added.
On election day, the results will be flown in UN helicopters or driven by UN vehicles to a central counting center in Port-au-Prince, the UN said.
MINUSTAH and the Haitian police will ensure security during voting.
The UN force "will not tolerate any act of sabotage, any activity seeking to disrupt the vote," Wimhurst said. "We are convinced the elections will run smoothly."
(snip)

http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:3PsL1-FYzzwJ:www.adetocqueville.com/200601280433.k0s4xbe24581.htm+David+Wimhurst+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=21

Wimhurst has been described as "partisan" in earlier situations:

"UNAMET spokesperson David Wimhurst has often been partisan in
his acts and also tends to corner the pro-integration group,"
FPDK spokesperson, Basilio Dias Araujo, was quoted as saying by
Antara in Dili yesterday.
(snip)

http://www.listserv.dfn.de/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9906e&L=indonews&O=D&F=&S=&P=322

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Look at the closest rival in this election:

Charles-Henry Jean-Marie Baker (b.June 3 1955 in Port-au Prince) is a Haitian industrialist with US residency and a candidate for president in the 2006 election. He initially billed himself as an independent and has allied himself with the Komba de Chavannes Jean Baptiste and Evans Lescouflair party. Baker is a former member of Groupe 184, a loose federation of business leaders, church officials and NGOs associated with the US federal government funded by USAID and the NED, opposed to the Jean-Bertrand Aristide government in 2004. Baker is widely considered the candidate of choice of Haiti's wealthy ruling class as well as the favoured candidate of the international business community.

Baker's father Edouard Baker was a prominent Engineer/Agronomist and a well-known soccer player. His mother Louise Barranco, a Businesswoman, was the founder of the first Supermarket chain in Haiti. Baker has two brothers and three sisters.

After completing his elementary school in Haiti, he traveled to the States where in 1972 he graduated from Redondo High school and went on to college. He completed his Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from St. Leo College in Tampa, Florida in 1976.

In 1975, he married Marie Florence Apaid They have four children and one grandchild.

Baker began his business career as a manager at the age 21 in the family owned and operated supermarket chain. When his father became ill, he took over the family-owned Tobacco farm “Habitation Dujour,” a 90-acre farmland which grew sugar cane, banana and tobacco. Eventually, the land expanded another 120 acres which made it the largest Flue cured Tobacco farm in Haiti with more than 200 acres. Simultaneously, from 1982 to 1985 he worked with the Tobacco growers of Haiti through the Comme Il Faut Company, where he held the position of Assistant to the Leaf Growing Manager.

Beginning in the late eighties, Baker began to purchase/set-up garment producing factories. These factories, which have been called sweatshops by labour rights and human rights organizations, employ hundreds of Haitians who are paid very little and have no benefits. Baker sells the garments produced in these factories to major corporations such as Sara Lee, Wal Mart and K-Mart.
(snip/...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Henri_Baker



Charles Henri Baker

[mom cat]

20. "hundreds of smashed ballot boxes and vote count material "

The sheer magnitude of the fraud boggles the mind.
Hundreds of ballot boxes!

Ans this also from the Forbes article:

"Haiti's interim government had ordered the count suspended with 90 percent of the votes tallied, pending a review of vote tally sheets by an investigative commission representing the president's office, the electoral council and Preval's party.

snip

But Max Mathurin, the electoral council president, said Wednesday that election workers are ignoring the government order and continuing to tabulate results.

snip

Of the 2.2 million ballots cast, about 125,000 ballots have been declared invalid because of irregularities, raising suspicions among Preval supporters. Another 4 percent were blank but were still added into the total, making it harder for Preval to obtain a majority.

snip

Late Tuesday, the local Telemax TV news broadcast images from the dump north of the capital showing smashed white ballot boxes with wads of ballots strewn about. Ballot after ballot was marked for Preval.

Among the bags seen by AP was one vote tally sheet from the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Carrefour that recorded 129 votes for Preval out of 202 cast.

A man picking through the dump, Jean-Ricot Guerrier, said the material was dumped by a truck the day after the election, and that someone had tried to burn the material before rainfall put out the fire."

[NorthernSpy]

21. Haiti's elite caste may actually be the most evil bunch of people...

... in the entire world.

I'm not kidding. They are no damn good.

And Baker, of course, is one of them.

:puke:

[K-W]

25. What about the American elite class that created them

and keeps them in power?

[NorthernSpy]

34. well, France's elite class created them originally, although...

... of course the United States has played an enormous role in turning Haiti into what it is today. No two ways about that.

:puke:

[seafan]

23. Maxine Waters denounces election fraud by coup government

According to haitiaction.net:

(Couldn't find this on her website yet)

Haiti: Maxine Waters denounces election fraud by coup government

2-15-06

Congresswoman Waters denounces the obvious attempts to steal the elections in Haiti and deny René Préval the Presidency

Washington, D.C. — Today, on Capitol Hill, Rep. Maxine Waters (CA-35) released a statement on the elections in Haiti. The elections took place on Tuesday, February 7, but the results have yet to be announced. The Congresswoman's statement follows:

The obvious attempts to steal the elections in Haiti are blatant and shameful. It is absolutely outrageous that the President Aristide-haters, the anti-Lavalas elites, and the United States Government would so openly and blatantly steal these elections.

The international community is witnessing yet another blow against the Haitian people by the same forces that forced President Aristide out of Haiti, the same forces who are responsible for all of the chaos and destabilization of this small country. How much more can the Haitian people take?

The anti-Aristide forces have done everything in their power to imprison the leaders of the Lavalas Party and deny Lavalas leaders their right to run for office and their right to voice their opposition to the Group of 184, the Provisional Electoral Council, the puppet government, the International Republican Institute, and others who are determined to undermine democracy in Haiti. President Bush must accept responsibility for the ongoing violence, the chaos, and the blatant attempts to steal these elections.

Early results showed an overwhelming victory for Rene Preval. Many polling stations posted their results the day after the elections, and Preval won between 60% and 90% of the vote in all of these polling stations. Last Thursday, the Provisional Electoral Council was reporting that Preval had 61.5% of the votes counted thus far.

Since that time, 125,000 ballots or 7.5% of the votes cast were declared invalid by the CEP because of alleged irregularities. Another 4% of the ballots were allegedly blank but nevertheless included in the vote count, thereby making it more difficult for Preval to exceed 50%.

http://www.haitiaction.net/News/MW/2_15_6.html

[Judi Lynn]

24. Empty ballot boxes, tote bags and thousands of ballots found at Haiti dump

Empty ballot boxes, tote bags and thousands of ballots found at Haiti dump

Andrew Selsky, Canadian Press
Published: Wednesday, February 15, 2006 Article tools

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - UN police went to a garbage dump near the Haitian capital Wednesday to recover election materials, including numbered bags apparently used to carry results and tally sheets, amid charges that last week's presidential election was marred by fraud.

Thousands of ballots, including some that were marked, also were strewn over about 4,000 square metres at the dump.

Associated Press reporters saw hundreds of empty ballot boxes, at least one vote tally sheet and several empty bags, numbered and signed by the heads of polling stations, strewn across the fly-infested dump about eight kilometres north of Port-au-Prince.
(snip)

Haiti's interim government ordered the vote count suspended with 90 per cent tallied, pending a review of tally sheets by an investigative commission representing the president's office, the electoral council and Preval's party.

"We are looking closely at specimens of the ballots found at the dump, to check whether these are real ballots," said Michel Brunache, chief of staff of interim President Boniface Alexandre.
(snip/)

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=52d35eae-a87f-4321-92ab-317a7f6b32fd&k=79465

[mom cat]

26. Pressure builds to resolve Haiti election impasse

Pressure builds to resolve Haiti election impasse
Thu Feb 16, 2006 1:16 AM GMT
By Joseph Guyler Delva and Jim Loney

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Brazil led a push on Wednesday to avert violence in Haiti by urging election officials to discard ballots possibly tainted by fraud and declare former President Rene Preval the winner, diplomats and officials said.

A diplomatic source and an aide to the one-time ally of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide said 85,000 "blank votes," in which no choice was made among the 33 candidates competing in the February 7 election, had become the focus of efforts to resolve the disputed election.

The blanks, amounting to 4.7 percent of the total, were included in accordance with the law and reduced the final percentage allocated to each candidate, helping to keep Preval below the simply majority he needed for a first-round win.

Preval's share of the vote so far stood at 48.7 percent, triggering angry protests by his supporters and a claim by Preval of "massive fraud." Preval, opposed by the same wealthy elite that helped drive Aristide into exile two years ago, would have 51 percent of the vote if the blanks were discarded.

"We are asking the authorities not to consider the blank votes because they are evidence of fraud," said Jacques Edouard Alexis, who served as prime minister for a time when Preval was president between 1996 and 2000.

Blank votes are a common way to register a protest vote in established democracies.

Haitians doubt so many of their countrymen really walked miles (km) to a polling station and then waited for hours simply to cast an unmarked ballot. The United Nations, which helped oversee the election, has also acknowledged that ballot boxes could easily have been stuffed with blanks.

"The focus now is on the blank votes because nobody believes that these blank votes are real," the diplomatic source said, asking not to be identified.



more at:

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-02-16T011620Z_01_N15204693_RTRUKOC_0_UK-HAITI-ELECTION.xml

[mom cat]

27. Brazil backs Preval's claim to victory in Haiti

Brazil backs Preval's claim to victory in Haiti
Wed Feb 15, 2006 4:21 PM GMT


BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazil, whose military is leading the United Nations peacekeeping force in Haiti, said on Wednesday that the best way to ease election tensions in the Caribbean nation would be to declare former president Rene Preval the victor.

"Considering the existing climate in the country, that would be the best solution," President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's chief foreign relations advisor, Marco Aurelio Garcia, told reporters in Brasilia.

Garcia added that declaring Preval the winner would likely enjoy the unanimous support of the international community, since it would prevent a messy runoff vote from taking place. He said Brazil was worried about the situation in Haiti and that it "feared that the situation would deteriorate."

"We propose that the candidates recognise Preval's victory," Garcia said.

Garcia's remarks were made one day after Preval, a one-time ally of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and opposed by the wealthy elite, claimed that widespread fraud had prevented him from winning a first-round victory in last week's election.

Those allegations appeared to gain more legitimacy when hundreds of burnt and still smouldering ballots, many cast for Preval, were later found at a garbage dump in Port-au-Prince.

more at:

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-02-15T162107Z_01_N15274164_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&related=true

[mom cat]

28. Canada troubled by Haiti vote fraud allegations

Canada troubled by Haiti vote fraud allegations

Wed Feb 15, 2006 6:48 PM GMT
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada, a major aid donor to Haiti, is troubled by allegations that last week's presidential election in the impoverished Caribbean nation was marred by fraud, Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said on Wednesday.

Counting of ballots stopped on Wednesday as Haitian electoral authorities bowed to a demand by Rene Preval, the leading candidate, for a fraud inquiry.

Thousands of people protested after charred ballots were found on a garbage dump. Some demonstrators chanted, "Look what they did with our votes," as they marched past the U.S., Canadian and French embassies.

"We've invested an enormous amount of both financial and political resources to helping with the democratic process in Haiti so it's troubling, to say the least, that these allegations have now emerged," MacKay said.

"We knew just from the appearance of the process that the potential was there and that was everyone's worst fear. (But) we're very hopeful and remain optimistic that this is going to be dealt with properly," he told Reuters in a phone interview.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-02-15T184753Z_01_N15212265_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&related=true

[mom cat]

29. UN urges Haiti poll 'fraud' probe

UN urges Haiti poll 'fraud' probe

Preval supporters protested after apparently finding dumped ballots
The UN Security Council has called on Haiti's interim government fully to investigate claims of fraud in last week's presidential election.
The council also urged all Haitians to pursue any concerns over the electoral process "peacefully and legally".

It follows days of street protests, fuelled by the apparent discovery of charred ballot papers at a dump.

Front-runner Rene Preval has alleged that "massive fraud" probably denied him an outright victory in the vote.

He warned of more protests if partial results - which would require a run-off on 19 March if confirmed - were published as final.

Ransacked

Some of the charred ballots found in a dump north of the capital, Port-au-Prince, appeared to be marked in favour of Mr Preval, prompting outcry from his supporters at the scene.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4718290.stm

[mom cat]

30. Pressure grows for Préval to be named Haiti president

Pressure grows for Préval to be named Haiti president

Duncan Campbell and agencies
Thursday February 16, 2006
The Guardian


What were described as "feverish" discussions were under way in Haiti yesterday to find a peaceful solution to the presidential election deadlock. René Préval, the former president and leading candidate by a very wide margin, declared yesterday that he should be acknowledged as the rightful winner without recourse to a run-off election.
Brazil, whose military leads the UN peacekeeping force in the country, also called for Mr Préval to be declared the winner. "Considering the existing climate in the country, that would be the best solution," President Lula da Silva's chief foreign relations adviser, Marco Aurelio Garcia, told reporters in Brasilia. The move would enjoy the unanimous support of the international community, he said.

Pressure grows for Préval to be named Haiti president

Duncan Campbell and agencies
Thursday February 16, 2006
The Guardian


What were described as "feverish" discussions were under way in Haiti yesterday to find a peaceful solution to the presidential election deadlock. René Préval, the former president and leading candidate by a very wide margin, declared yesterday that he should be acknowledged as the rightful winner without recourse to a run-off election.
Brazil, whose military leads the UN peacekeeping force in the country, also called for Mr Préval to be declared the winner. "Considering the existing climate in the country, that would be the best solution," President Lula da Silva's chief foreign relations adviser, Marco Aurelio Garcia, told reporters in Brasilia. The move would enjoy the unanimous support of the international community, he said.

snip


With more than 90% of votes from the February 7 election counted, Mr Préval has 48.7% of the total, well ahead of the next candidates, Leslie Manigat, with 11.8%, and Charlito Baker on 7.9%, but just short of the total needed to avoid a run-off. Mr Préval's supporters have blocked roads, claiming the Haitian elite was trying to defraud their candidate of victory after it emerged there were 120,000 void ballots and 85,000 blank ones.
Frantic discussions at a number of levels between candidates, the UN, foreign embassies and Haitian election officials were taking place yesterday to resolve the issue. The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, and the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, have both been contacted. Most neutral parties accept Mr Préval has won and are anxious to avoid further angry demonstrations if it is deemed that he has not passed the 50% mark

Mr Préval claimed he had been the victim of fraud but called on supporters to halt their street blockades. "Continue to protest according to the constitution," he said, "but with respect for the rights of others to go to work, to take care of their business." He added: "Do not fall in the trap set by those people. Watch for agitators, infiltrators. Continue to protest, but with intelligence, legally, with respect. Do not attack people, respect the property of others, respect private property. Do all that so we can win the political battle."

More at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1710697,00.html#article_continue

[Judi Lynn]

32. Concerned DU'ers were thinking something like this might be happening

when it was apparent they were stretching out the vote counting. They were set against an enormous task: trying to get the _Bush candidate a credible win.

What government was in put in charge after the coup, anyway? Why, the one arranged by the same people who armed and trained the death squads in the Dominican Republic, who brought some of the death squad leaders there from their asylum in the U.S.

Thanks to mom cat for these excellent new articles.

[mom cat]

31. Brazil Will Support Haiti Accord to Declare Preval President

Brazil Will Support Haiti Accord to Declare Preval President

Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil will support an agreement to declare Rene Preval president of Haiti, avoiding a runoff amid growing unrest, the government's Agencia Brasil said on its Web site, citing a top presidential adviser.

Haiti's presidential contenders should reach an accord to accept Preval as the winner to avoid escalating violence, said Marco Aurelio Garcia, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's top aide for foreign affairs, according to the government's agency. Brazil leads a United Nations peacekeeping force of 9,000 soldiers in Haiti.

Preval, who on Feb. 13 slipped below the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff from an initial count of more than 60 percent, has now 49.5 percent of counted votes, the agency said, citing Garcia.

The former prime minister for deposed president Jean- Bertrand Aristide has more than half the votes to beat Leslie Manigat, who has 12 percent, if blank and invalid votes aren't counted, Garcia said, according to the agency.

Haiti, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, held a first round of votes for president on Feb. 7.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=aj4vQUDT3S.k&refer=latin_america

[Judi Lynn]

33. One glaring flaw in the assertion Préval supporters may have done this

would be the fact that they would NOT have had access to the ballots, although the _Bush appointed government surely would have, and that government would favor the right-wing candidate, obviously, not René Préval. Letta Tayler, the author of the following article used this little island's tampered-with election as an exercise in creative (although racially offensive) writing, with a touch of right-wing (((( spin )))). I'd like to ask her how she knows Haitians, or "slum dwellers," in her view, would use these partially burned ballots as toilet paper.

Discovery of ballots in dump draws ire, questions in Haiti
BY LETTA TAYLER
STAFF CORRESPONDENT

February 15, 2006, 9:36 PM EST


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- The charred, crumpled ballots sat in heaps in the stinking garbage dump. Stray pigs and goats nibbled some of them, chomping the face of front-runner René Préval. Slum dwellers carted away hundreds of others as mementos or to use as toilet paper.

The discovery of thousands of stolen ballots in a dump on the outskirts of this capital city is the latest blow to Feb. 7 presidential elections that had been touted as a milestone in bringing democracy to volatile Haiti.

Many ballots at the dump were blank or were filled out as votes for Préval, considered a champion of Haiti's poor, who in the latest returns was just shy of the majority he would need to avoid a runoff. But international election monitors said some may have been unused ballots that were fraudulently marked.

"This is sabotage on the part of provocateurs," said Gérard Le Chevalier, who heads a United Nations electoral team overseeing the vote. "But as to which side they are from, I don't know."

Several international observers said the ballots might have been deliberately dumped where they would be found to incite violence among Préval supporters and thwart a transfer of power. Some observers didn't rule out the possibility that hard-core Préval supporters had planted the ballots to support their claims of fraud.
(snip/...)

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wohait0216,0,108329.story?coll=ny-top-headlines

[Judi Lynn]

35. Please take a look at this N.Y. Times article, and decide if you think

these people, described as "slum dwellers" are, as Newsday writer Letta Tayler are "carting off" burned ballots "use as toilet paper."



I tend to imagine they are looking at these burned ballots as if they are examing evidence of a fraudulent election.

[NorthernSpy]

37. oh, the toilet paper aisle at my grocery store always looks like that...

Very believable supposition on Ms. Tayler's part, I say. Whenever I buy toilet paper, I see a large number of people gathered round, solemnly poring over the toilet paper, pointing out various details to each other; everybody examining the toilet paper, and reading it over each other's shoulders...

Oh, wait! On second thought, it's NEVER like that.

[NorthernSpy]

36. obvious racist fantasy on Letta Tayler's part...

The charred, crumpled ballots sat in heaps in the stinking garbage dump. Stray pigs and goats nibbled some of them, chomping the face of front-runner René Préval. Slum dwellers carted away hundreds of others as mementos or to use as toilet paper.

Because, you understand, those ignorant little negroes would never have the presence of mind to actually try to salvage as much evidence of the crime as possible before the area got scrubbed clean. Before the election authorities announced that their "investigation" had turned up "no evidence of widespread ballot tampering", blahblahblah...

No, it stands to reason that they'd take this proof of their own disenfranchisement for use as toilet paper. Because those people have no higher thought processes.


:sarcasm:


Apparently, this Letta Tayler twit previously held the post of "Pop Music Critic" at Newsday. Just before she was made "Latin American Bureau Chief".


:eyes:

[Judi Lynn]

39. After reading your post, I looked up her photo.

It's the only one I could find quickly. She is one abominable writer. They should never assign her to anything important.

I saw in one google entry she was embedded with the Marines. I guess the _Bush administration is getting those quality stories they all love from people like her.

[Peter Frank]

38. Message to Hatians...

...Welcome to Florida and Ohio.