US urges Haitians to accept election results

UPDATED: 09:28, February 14, 2006
US urges Haitians to accept election results

The United States on Monday called on Haitians to respect the results of the presidential election to which protestors have alleged fraud in the polls.

"Any time there is a hard, contested election ... it's important that once the election results are announced and finalized, that all parties come together and work together, regardless of their political differences, for the better of the country," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said at a news briefing.

"We underscore at this point ... that all respect the results of the election, and that there will be no resort to violence and people respect other's political differences."

With around 90 percent of the vote counted, Haiti's elections commission said on Sunday that leading vote-getter, former Haitian President, Rene Preval, was just shy of the 50 percent of the vote necessary to avoid a runoff.
(snip/...)

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200602/14/eng20060214_242602.html

Unless it's the assholes we armed and helped to overthrow the legitimate, elected government a couple years back ...

elected president.

Does he mean that kinda "resort to violance"?

like the ones he armed and trained in the Dominican Republic, before they came across the border and started butchering Haitians.

Ya know ever so often I get to feelin' rightwingers are just a wee tad bit oh I dunno MFing hypocritical SOBs. Ever get that feeling?

Heh.

hold the world hostage.

:sarcasm: :puke: :puke: :puke:

Why do we mess with Haiti anyway? Why do we foster instability there? What is the motive? I am missing part of the picture, I think.

up from south america and through Jeb Bush's florida

Thanks! I kinda figured it had something to do with that. Corruption is a handy tool in drug trafficking...

Haiti has been nothing more than a breeding ground for cheap farm labor for the U.S. Growing up to "go to Miami" is a way of life, expected of at least one family member and essential for income for the family.

..as votes for 'none'. Coincidentally enough, that was just enough to drop Preval's percentage from 52% to around 49%, thus forcing a runoff.

on edit:

Here's an article about some of it:

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/13/Worldandnation/Haitians_cry_foul_ove.shtml
With 90 percent of votes now officially tallied, Preval has only 48.7 percent - just shy of the majority required to avoid a second round. Earlier in the count last week, Preval had more than 60 percent and seemed to be cruising to victory.

The candidate in second place, another former president Leslie Manigat, had only 11.8 percent, less votes than the number of spoiled and blank ballots. Suspicion Monday focused on the high number of those discarded votes, 12.2 percent, raising comparisons to the "hanging chads" debate in the November 2000 Florida presidential election, where many votes were deemed invalid because of improperly punched ballots.

There are more 'spoiled' and blank ballots than the 2nd place candidate that Preval now has to runoff against. Why can't he runoff against 'none'?

and if someone cheated it's Preval and not the other one. A second round is standard in that kind of election system. It's normally very difficult to get over 50%. And if you had a more than 50% in the first round it had been suspicious too. Preval will win in the second round.

Even if ALL the discarded votes had gone to Marigat, he would have only got 24%.

Chirac made only 18% in the first round of the latest French presidential election due to the number of candidates. In a normal second round in the French system (same on Haiti) the President is elected with 51-52% of the votes, unless there are special cases like De Gaulle or the latest Chirac/LePen, when the winner scores 80% depending on a very peculiar political situation.

Why should a blank ballot count for something, when someone who never went to the polling station doesn't? I do have a high suspicion of these blank ballots - they're easy to keep hanging around, and if you're caught with them, you just say they were spare ones - less incriminating than being caught with a pile of ballots filled in for one candidate.

It's not a 'standard' situation. They had a president deposed in extremely dubious circumstances. Preval is a former president, under whom Haiti had a few years of relative stability. It seems quite reasonable that half the people would vote for him.

Yes, you'd think that Preval would win the second round in a landslide. But given the way Aristide was forced out, we can't rule out military intervention in the next couple of weeks. It's worrying.

Talk about not passing the sniff test! Can you imagine even ONE person standing in line for hours, in lines over a mile long to finally make it to the front of the line and then say "Oh, maybe I really don't want to vote anyway"? Can you imagine 72,000 people doing it?
This is good old American style election theft.

I had understood there were a lot of international monitors on the ground there. I don't see anything about them in either of the two links posted in this thread.

this:

Election fraud accusation in Haiti
Outraged voters threaten violence as Preval's lead shrinks
Ginger Thompson, New York Times

Monday, February 13, 2006

Port-au-Prince, Haiti -- The calm that followed national elections in Haiti was replaced by tension on Sunday, and confidence in the process started to weaken, as leaders of this country's fractious political parties expressed frustration with the delay in releasing final results.

Community leaders in the country's slums, seeing the share of votes won by their presidential candidate starting to slip, accused electoral authorities of fraud. On Sunday, a member of Haiti's electoral council said election results were being manipulated.

"According to me, there's a certain level of manipulation," Pierre Richard Duchemin, an electoral council member, said, adding that "there is an effort to stop people from asking questions" about the counting process.

Duchemin said Sunday he needed access to tallies of vote counts in hopes of learning who was behind the alleged manipulation. He called for an investigation.

With more than 75 percent of the vote counted by Sunday afternoon, the lead held by Rene Preval, considered the favorite of this country's impoverished masses, had dropped to 49.1 percent. A finish of less than 50 percent would force Preval into a runoff next month.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/02/13/MNG0OH7GE61.DTL

One Hatian that I talked to this morning fears a massive uprising and the bloodshead that would ensue. So do I. It wouls also be a way for the US to keep troops there "to help stabilize" the situation. :puke:

Violence in Haiti as Top Candidate Slips in Count


SNIP:

The peace that had prevailed in this troubled country began to unravel Sunday, when the Provisional Electoral Council failed to release final vote counts, and incomplete results suggested that Mr. Préval would not win more than 50 percent. The results contradicted unofficial vote samples taken by the Organization of American States and the National Democratic Institute.

People on the street began asking questions about the estimated 147,000 ballots that had been voided by electoral authorities as illegible and about the estimated 85,000 blank ballots in the net total of valid votes. If those votes had not been included in the total, election observers estimate, Mr. Préval would have slightly more than 51 percent of the vote.

Even more troubling questions have been raised about the missing tabulation sheets.

A United Nations official said the election body's executive director, Jacques Bernard, was considering issuing a call to poll workers demanding the sheets or asking leading political parties, which also received copies, to share them with elections officials.

"This is a problem that I believe can be worked out with good will and cooperation, not with haggling and street protests," José Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the Organization of American States, said in a telephone interview from Washington.

The United Nations official who discussed the missing ballots said that with the threat of mounting protests, time might have run out. "I think we may need to reach a political solution to a technical problem," the official said.
More at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/14/international/americas/14haiti.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Charges of vote-count manipulation hit Haiti poll
12 Feb 2006 21:05:39 GMT

Source: Reuters


By Joseph Guyler Delva

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Haitians awaited the final results of their first election since Jean-Bertrand Aristide was driven from power amid growing concern that the vote tabulation, which has taken more than four days, was being manipulated.

Former president Rene Preval, who leads the first round of voting by a wide margin, complained that there was a "problem" with the counting of votes, and two members of the nine-member council that oversees elections said there was "manipulation" at the tabulation center in the capital.

Preval, an Aristide protege who worries the wealthy elite who helped oust Aristide in February 2004, held 49.1 percent of the votes counted so far, according to results posted on Sunday morning on the Provisional Electoral Council's (CEP) Web site.

Preval needs 50 percent to avoid a March 19 run-off against the second-place candidate, currently ex-president Leslie Manigat at 11.7 percent.

more at:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N12187838.htm

But of the 2.2 million ballots cast, about 125,000 ballots have been declared invalid because of irregularities, raising suspicion among Preval supporters that polling officials were rigging the election.

Another 4 percent of the ballots were blank but were still added into the total, making it harder for Preval to obtain the 50 percent plus one vote needed.

Jacques Bernard, director-general of the nine-member electoral council, denied accusations that the council voided many votes for Preval.

Valdes said he did not believe there was fraud, although he noted that the voided and blank votes "pose some questions."

Council member Patrick Fequiere said Bernard was releasing results without notifying other council members or telling them where he was obtaining his information. And another council member, Pierre Richard Duchemin, said he was being denied access to the tabulation process.

"According to me, there's a certain level of manipulation," Duchemin said, adding that "there is an effort to stop people from asking questions."

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1614891&page=3

_Bush's State Department spokesman gibbered language we undoubtedly heard all the way back in the days after the 2000 election:

"it's important that once the election results are announced and finalized, that all parties come together and work together, regardless of their political differences, for the better of the country,"

We saw how well the Republicans respect this advice. I'll NEVER FORGET the Florida House Speaker's move to install a completely new slate of electors BEFORE the vote recount was inappropriately ended, JUST IN CASE GORE WON OUTRIGHT.

You may remember seeing this scum, Feeney.



Good old Republican advice for everyone other than themselves.

We did!
:sarcasm:

If the US is asking you to respect the elections results, it can only mean one thing: FRAUD!

Peacekeepers Fire on Haiti Protesters
U.N. Peacekeepers Fire on Haiti Election Protesters, Hotel Stormed As Fiery Roadblocks Cripple Port-Au-Prince


Hundreds of supporters of Haitian presidential front-runner Rene Preval run down Delmas road to join more protesters in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Monday, Feb. 13, 2006. Preval supporters erected roadblocks to demand he be declared the winner of Haiti's presidential elections as results showed his lead slipping further below the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff, in the midst of accusations of vote count fraud. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)

Bird Flu Detected in Italy and Greece
Kidnappers Threaten to Kill Hostages
U.S. and Cuba Theatrical Shouting Match Rages
By STEVENSON JACOBS

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti Feb 13, 2006 (AP)— U.N. peacekeepers opened fire Monday on Haitians protesting election results, killing at least one and wounding four, witnesses said as flaming roadblocks paralyzed the capital.

Hundreds of screaming demonstrators elsewhere stormed into an upscale hotel housing an electoral office in the hills above Port-au-Prince and helicopters landed on the roof to evacuate guests.

Associated Press journalists saw the body of a man in the street in the Tabarre neighborhood, a T-shirt bearing the image of leading candidate Rene Preval soaked in blood. Witnesses said Jordanian U.N. peacekeepers opened fire on them, killing two and wounding four. The body of the second victim was not at the scene.

Protesters have alleged the electoral commission is manipulating the vote count to prevent leading candidate and Preval, a one-time protege of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, from winning a first-round victory in this battered and poor Caribbean nation.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1613079

Soon after Radio Métropole began announcing new results at 7 a.m., waves of people marched onto the city's main thoroughfares. In minutes there was a storm of protests. Some set tires on fire, and smashed the windshields of cars that tried to pass. A Haitian television station broadcast images of a man shot to death, and people being interviewed at the scene said the man had been shot in a clash with United Nations soldiers. The United Nations denied that charge.

Thousands of protesters stormed the Hotel Montana, where election results are released to the press and international election observers. Most of the protests ended without incident, though, and some protesters jumped into the hotel's pool.

"They told us to come to vote in peace and we did," said Pouchon Pierre, 23, one of several young men pounding on cars trying to get through a barricade. "Now they want to steal the election from us. But we will not let them."

The peace that had prevailed in this troubled country began to unravel Sunday, when the Provisional Electoral Council failed to release final vote counts, and incomplete results suggested that Mr. Préval would not win more than 50 percent. The results contradicted unofficial vote samples taken by the Organization of American States and the National Democratic Institute.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/14/international/americas/14haiti.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

February 8, 2006 6:05 PM
Haiti counts votes in presidential election

By Jim Loney and Joseph Guyler Delva

"The page cannot be displayed"

I had a feeling we'd get this story first from an outside source. I wonder if anyone here will pick it up. It sounds like the _Bush administration is really overbearing in Haiti, as always, even though the U.N. is allegedly overseeing the operation.

As a citizen said in an interview, regarding U.S. ambassador James Foley:

"What I see now is we're going right into a dictatorship. U.S. Ambassador Foley is the real President of Haiti! Each day I get more and more scared. It's the rewriting of 1915."
(snip)

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/FEN411A.html



_Bush's ambassador James Foley

Ah yes, the pro-Serbian outfit that says the "...US-NATO war on Yugoslavia was an act of aggression that destroyed the entire Republic" and which hosts articles that paint the Srebrenica massacre as a Bosnian plot to smear the poor Serbs. Scumbags.

NATO put a stop to Serbian agression to late, and the shame and dishonor of the UN forces who abandoned those poor civlians to the grasp of cruel partisans will not soon be forgotten.

http://www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/srebrenica/srebrenica.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/675945.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre

And in response to the "works for me" skeptics, I've tried 20-30 times over nearly four hours. If english.peopledaily is a progressive site (and the name certainly sounds as if it is), it's possible my server is censoring it; this has been alleged before, but never to my knowledge proven -- the reason I'm not naming my server.

for us?

If there was fraud, don't let it stand. Demand fair elections.

An estimated 2.2-million people, or 63 percent of registered voters, cast ballots.

About 125,000 ballots - or 7.5 percent of the votes cast - have been declared invalid because of irregularities, raising suspicion among Preval supporters that polling officials are trying to steal the election.


http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/13/Worldandnation/Fraud_accusations_fly.shtml

www.chinaview.cn 2006-02-14 10:29:44


HAVANA, Feb. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- The United Nations has called for calm in Haiti after clashes between UN peacekeepers and supporters of Haitian presidential candidate Rene Preval left one dead on Monday, according to reports from Haiti.


Thousands of Haitians took to the streets on Monday after the authorities announced that Preval, representing the Hope Party, had not won the presidency outright in the first round.(Photo: Xinhua/Reuters)
Thousands of Haitians took to the streets on Monday after the authorities announced that Preval, representing the Hope Party, had not won the presidency outright in the first round.

A young man wearing a Rene Preval T-shirt died during fighting in the Fleuriot Crossroads area, north of Port-au-Prince, the capital city.

The death occurred when members of the UN military and police force in Haiti (MINUSTAH) confronted a group of Preval supporters,who were trying to set up a barricade across a major street.

Eyewitnesses said that Jordanian peacekeepers, wearing the distinctive UN blue helmets, fired the shot that killed the Preval supporter.

But a MINUSTAH spokesman denied the peacekeepers

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-02/14/content_4177772.htm

Nothing more than a proxy army that acts according to US objectives.

They put an "international face" on the occupation of Haiti. Seems to have worked just as wonderfully as it would in Iraq.

What a load of garbage...but why are we surprised.

The Republican opponent loses out (less than 50%) at the last minute.

There are problems with the vote count.

People object and the public protests.

Protests are "corralled" and not allowed.

Oh, and you can be sure of this, the numbers will NOT make any sense.

It's just another Republican election holiday in the Caribbean!

Or, as they say, "Love Boat, Carry Me Home."

RECOMMENDED

February 14, 2006 latimes.com :

Gunfire Kills 1 as Haitians Demand That Preval Be Declared President
Tension grows after the electoral council indicates he will face a runoff next month.

By Carol J. Williams and Chantal Regnault, Special to The Times


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Gunfire erupted and killed a man Monday as angry supporters of presidential front-runner Rene Preval took to the streets to protest delays and rumored fraud in ballot counting from the Feb. 7 elections.

Witnesses said the gunfire in the capital's Tabarre neighborhood came from U.N. forces — a charge denied by the peacekeepers' spokesman.


Another mob stormed the luxury Hotel Montana in search of election officials the protesters accused of trying to deny a majority victory to Preval.

"We will burn the entire city unless they give us the results!" vowed Jean Civil, among the Preval backers who set up a roadblock of burning tires at the busy Canape Vert intersection. "They don't want to give us the results because they are making them up."

more at:

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-haiti14feb14,0,3599017.story?coll=la-news-a_section

Left hand............................................................right hand.



And a crapload of hypocrisy in between.

The Haitian people are not going to stand for this.

:kick:

Will these sorts of messages become routine after U.S. presidential elections of the future?

That is precisely the reason not to.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2106831

A fine example of speaking out of both sides of one's ass.



Note: Not to say that Hamas winning was a good thing by any stretch of the imagination, but geez the hypocracy is rank.

...love fraudulent elections.

:kick:

Election fraud...

Not just a US problem.

committ fraud to get Preval below 50%. Protests inevitably result. For the second round election, remind everyone that Preval's supporters rioted. People end up voting for the right winger because they feel that a vote for Preval is a vote for chaos.

for the UN which is doing the US bidding to keep troops there longer. Also, the unrest might provide a cover to assassinate Preval.

... with plans to topple them. Oh no, wait, it's "do as we say, not as we do," right, I keep forgetting that part.