Haitian violence may hurt turnout for Sunday vote

Violent clashes leading up to Sunday's presidential vote may keep many Haitians from casting their ballots for a leader to head reconstruction after January's earthquake that killed 300,000, said the head of the largest foreign electoral observation group in Haiti.

Gunshots broke out late Friday at a campaign rally of candidate Michel Martelly, with reports of one dead, according to his spokeswoman Leila Rusciani. It was the latest in a series of violent outbreaks leading up to the vote, including anti-U.N. protests that left at least one dead on Nov. 15.

"We have a number of concerns, the first of which is whether acts of violence could disrupt the election or intimidation could cause some people to think twice about going out" to vote, said Colin Granderson, Organization of American States envoy in Haiti.

Meanwhile, a cholera outbreak that has left more than 1,600 dead and 31,000 hospitalized, and withholding of voter IDs for as much as 10 percent of the electorate also are factors that may cause a low voter turnout, Granderson said from Port-au-Prince.

He said voter abstention will be high in tent camps housing 1.3 million quake victims. Discontent over the pace of reconstruction by the government of President Rene Preval could translate into votes against ruling-party candidate Jude Celestin, he said.

"No government here"

"We live like animals. There's no government here," said Romulus Fresmel, 26, a tent-camp dweller in the Cite Soleil slum. He has been teaching without pay in classrooms without books and pencils. He blames the situation on a corrupted system: "I won't vote because all the candidates are mercenaries."

Celestin, a 48-year-old engineer with the most campaign posters decorating cracked walls in the capital, is a front-runner, according to polls published by the local press, along with Martelly, 49, a Haitian pop star, and Mirlande Manigat, 70, a university professor and former senator whose husband was ousted after four months in office in 1988.

A second round would take place in January between the top two candidates if none of the 18 candidates gets more than 50 percent of the votes cast, said Gaillot Dorsinvil, provisional electoral council president.

Delay rejected

About 4.5 million Haitians are eligible to vote for a new president, 11 of 30 senators and all 99 parliament deputies. Dorsinvil refused calls by four candidates to push back the vote to focus on reconstruction and stemming the spread of cholera.

"This election has great political significance. People must come and vote," Dorsinvil said last week at a former Gold's Gym building in the capital where the council relocated from its destroyed headquarters.

Voter turnout in an April 2009 senate vote was 11 percent amid a boycott by supporters of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted after a 2004 rebellion, according to Dorsinvil.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission of 8,900 soldiers and 3,200 police will provide election security and take ballots from voting centers to electoral offices, Dorsinvil said. The force, which stepped up its presence after the quake, helped police stabilize after the 2004 conflict. The army was abolished in 1995.

U.N. forces are the only authority seen in parts of the capital. A caravan of U.N. troops encountered no Haitian police this week in gang-controlled Cite Soleil, Haiti's largest slum, now patrolled by Brazilian U.N. troops.

"There are less Haitian police here since the quake," said Brazilian Capt. Taujo Dornelles as his jeep passed dusty tent camps.