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Incident

Haiti slum clash stokes unrest fears, one killed

15 January 2011 01:48 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Gunmen clashed with police in a running street battle in a slum district of Haiti’s capital on Friday, fueling fears of a resurgence of the election-related violence that hit the poor Caribbean nation last month, APA reports quoting â€œReutersâ€.
At least one person was killed and several were arrested after protesters used burning tires to erect barricades across streets in Martissant, on the city’s south side, Port-au-Prince Police Commissioner Michaelange Gedeon told Reuters.
"They had set up barricades and fired off rounds of gunshots when we arrived. They started shooting at us. One of them was killed in a shootout with the police," Gedeon said.
He said it was not immediately clear what triggered the protest. But it came amid widespread concerns that an experts’ report from the Organization of American States (OAS), which challenges the official results of Haiti’s November 28 national elections, could spur fresh outbreaks of unrest.
Haitian President Rene Preval, who cannot stand for a second consecutive term, received the report from a team of OAS experts on Thursday. The report recommends that Preval’s handpicked successor be eliminated from a second-round run-off election because of numerous problems with preliminary results from the poll.
A senior government official said Preval had voiced "a number of reservations" about the OAS report, which could bar his choice, Jude Celestin, from contention.
The incident added to tensions and uncertainty two days after Haiti marked the first anniversary of the devastating January 12, 2010 earthquake in the volatile Caribbean country.
The president, accused by opponents of rigging the U.N.-backed November elections that took place amid widespread confusion and fraud allegations, had originally asked the OAS to help verify the disputed preliminary election results.
NEXT ELECTION STEP UNCERTAIN
It was not clear whether Preval would reject the report’s recommendation or seek to discuss his reservations further with the OAS experts. It was also unclear if he would submit the OAS recommendation to the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), the final arbiter of the elections.
The preliminary election results, which were hotly contested by opposition candidates and triggered riots when they were announced by the CEP last month, had put government technocrat and Preval protege Celestin in the second round.
The OAS experts’ report cited "significant" vote tally irregularities to recommended that Celestin be replaced in the second round run-off by popular musician Michel Martelly, who had been narrowly placed third in the preliminary results.
The OAS experts’ report confirmed opposition matriarch Mirlande Manigat as the candidate who won most votes in the first round, although she did not gain enough to win outright. She therefore remains in the second-round run-off.
Election observers say that even if the CEP heeds the OAS experts’ findings, it still has to complete a disputes procedure before it can formally announce final revised results from the November 28 first round vote.
This means Haiti will not be able to hold a presidential election second round run-off before February, at the earliest.
Leading critics of what has been widely seen as a fraud-marred election continue to call for a complete elections re-run, annulling the still preliminary results from November 28. A group of presidential candidates also have made this call.
Last month’s protests and violence triggered by the December 7 results killed at least four people and increased fears that instability could delay the handover of billions of dollars of reconstruction funds for Haiti from foreign donors.