Violence Flares as Top Candidate Slips in Haiti Count

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 13, NYT — Tens of thousands of people paralyzed traffic with flaming barricades here on Monday, charging fraud in the tabulation of votes from the election for president last week, and demanding that René Préval be declared Haiti's next president, even though results suggested that he had not won the required majority of votes in the first round.

Electoral authorities reported Monday afternoon that votes tabulated from more than 90 percent of the country's 9,000 polling places showed that while Mr. Préval had a strong lead over his nearest rivals, he had slipped farther from a first-round victory, with 48.7 percent of the votes.

His campaign advisers raised questions about an estimated 8 percent of the tabulation sheets that electoral authorities reported as missing or destroyed, but it was unclear whether Mr. Préval would challenge the results.

Leslie Manigat, 75, who had served four months as president in 1988 and was ousted by a military coup, was running second, with 11.8 percent.

Carolyn Cooley, a spokeswoman for the United States Embassy, said in an interview that foreign diplomats, including the American ambassador, Tim Carney, had started talks with Mr. Préval. Some said the talks were aimed at seeking a settlement that would keep this poor, broken country from descending back into anarchy.

A high-ranking official in Haiti for the Organization of American States and a Haitian political analyst close to the talks said that other foreign diplomats and leaders of the interim government had met with Mr. Manigat about the possibility of withdrawing from a second round of voting. The political analyst, who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid interfering with the negotiations, said, "Haiti cannot afford another round of elections, not only because of the monetary costs, but because of the cost in blood."

Mr. Préval had been awaiting final results in his hometown of Marmelade. But as the protest grew hostile on Monday, he was flown in a United Nations helicopter to the capital, where he met with Juan Gabriel Valdés, chief of the United Nations Stabilization Mission, which has struggled to help restore order to Haiti since an uprising forced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide out of power and into exile two years ago.

Then he was taken by United Nations helicopter to the National Palace, where he waved triumphantly to screaming throngs. Advisers to Mr. Préval, a protégé of Mr. Aristide's, said they expected him to make statements on Haitian radio stations urging the volatile crowds roaming the streets to remain calm.

In interviews, at least two of Mr. Préval's advisers echoed the the protesters' concerns about the credibility of the results. They said Mr. Préval probably would not agree to ask his supporters to end their marches without some agreement from Mr. Manigat to support a recount or to withdraw from a second round.

"If his opponents turn over their votes to Préval so that he can win, then that will only weaken his legitimacy as president," said Fritz Jean, a former president of the Central Bank. "There must be a recount to prove that he is the clear winner."

The political analyst close to the negotiations said Mr. Manigat had also been expected at the National Palace on Monday. But he could not confirm whether Mr. Manigat had been there.

In a telephone interview Monday morning, Mr. Manigat, a historian beloved by some as a wise old grandfather of Haitian politics and dismissed by others as out of touch, said that this country's fragile democracy would be undermined if he allowed threats of violence to force him out of the race. "We cannot let violence guide the process," he said. "We must respect the Constitution. We must go to the second round. It's crystal clear."

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.