Official election results have been beset by delays

Port-au-Prince, February 12, 2006. Official election results have been beset by delays. Of some 800 voting centers in the country, nine were destroyed by political parties fighting for control of the counting.

"In Bombardopolis, four candidates personally went to the voting center and trashed the polling stations," said David Wimhurst, a spokesman for the U.N. Mission here. "Don't ask me why they did it, but they did it."

An estimated 2 percent of the results from the polling stations never arrived to the tabulation center. Wimhurst say some of the bags have been found and are on the there way.

"There is a certain laxity in the system," he said.

The tally sheets from another 504 stations had various problems that required U.N. advisers to try to work out before they could be tabulated. The most common issue is that poll workers recorded the wrong station numbers atop the form.