Haitian Election Protests Grow in Size and Hostility

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 13 — Flaming barricades paralyzed traffic today, and tens of thousands of people marched in all directions across the Haitian capital charging fraud in the tabulations of votes from last week's elections and demanding that René Préval be declared the country's next president.

The demonstrations continued to grow in size and hostility this afternoon, and at least one person was killed.

A high-ranking official at the Organization of American States, which helped organize the elections, said , foreign diplomats and leaders of Haiti's interim government had started negotiations with Mr. Préval's leading rivals, asking them to withdraw from a second-round of voting and stop this poor, broken country from descending back into anarchy.

"A little calm, a little patience. The will of the people will be respected," interim Prime Minister, Géerard Latortue said in a televised speech. "The victory will not be stolen."

The prime minister said that the official results would be announced as soon as possible, and that if a candidate has 50 percent, "he will be immediately declared president."

Mr. Préval, who had been awaiting final results in his father's hometown of Marmelade, was flown by a United Nations helicopter back to the capital this afternoon. Advisers to Mr. Préval said they expected him to make statements on Haitian radio stations urging the volatile crowds roaming the streets to remain calm.

At the same time, however, advisers to Mr. Préval echoed concerns by the demonstrators that election results had been manipulated and that their candidate was being cheated out of victory.

Electoral authorities reported today that votes tabulated from more than 90 percent of the country's 9,000 polling places showed the 63-year-old Mr. Préval with 48.7 percent of the votes, a commanding lead over his nearest rivals, but less than the 50 percent plus one-vote he needed to avoid a second round of voting.

Leslie François Manigat, 75, who had served four months as president in 1988 until he was ousted by a military coup, was running second with 11.8 percent of the vote.

The results have sent crowds of menacing people out of the slums that have become strongholds to Mr. Préval marching up the mountainsides into the well-to-do areas of Pétion-Ville, and on the Hotel Montana, where results are released to the news media and international observers each night. Along the way, the crowds tore down and battered campaign posters for Mr. Préval's rivals and smashed windshields of cars that tried to get past flaming barricades.

A Haitian television station broadcast images of a man shot to death in the Tabarre section of Port-au-Prince. People interviewed at the scene said the man had been shot in a clash with United Nations peacekeepers. But a United Nations spokesman denied that the peacekeepers opened fire on demonstrators, The Associated Press reported.

"They told us to come to vote in peace and we did," said Pouchon Pierre, 23. "And now they want to steal the election from us. But we will not let them.

"No Préval," he warned, "no Haiti."