PORT-AU-PRINCE – About 2,000 protesters marched in Haiti’s capital yesterday demanding a rerun of Sunday’s elections they said were skewed by fraud, as the jittery Caribbean nation awaited results expected next week.
The march, in which demonstrators waved red cards calling for the immediate exit of outgoing president René Préval and his protege, presidential candidate Jude Célestin, was watched by riot police and was boisterous but saw no serious violence.
The protest was led by a group of presidential candidates – excluding the three main front-runners – who are calling for the annulment of Sunday’s vote, accusing Mr Preval’s government of trying to manipulate the elections in Mr Célestin’s favour.
It was the latest in several days of simmering unrest over the presidential and legislative elections, which were marred by confusion and fraud charges and held in the midst of a cholera epidemic which is still killing dozens of Haitians each day.
The international community has funded and backed the polls to in an attempt to try to create a stable, legitimate government in the western hemisphere’s poorest state to lead recovery from a devastating January 12th earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people.
United Nations officials say the protests and sporadic violence are less than the electoral turmoil seen in previous years in Haiti and they and international monitors have endorsed the polls as generally acceptable. – (Reuters)