Haiti Vote Manipulation

Like taking candy from a baby.

THe popular candidate may well go the way of Aristide before it's over.

The IRI has been busy trying to get a right-wing candidate elected. They are rednecks who spread their gospel in several countries.
I will not be surprised when the election is rigged and the poor will be put back in their place.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti -- Tens of thousands of people paralyzed traffic with flaming barricades here on Monday, charging fraud in the tabulation of votes from last week's national elections and demanding that the leading candidate be declared Haiti's next president.

Electoral authorities reported Monday morning that votes tabulated from more than 90 percent of the country's 9,000 polling places showed that while Rene Preval had a strong lead over his nearest rivals, he had slipped father away 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 Preval would challenge the results.

Leslie Francois 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 U.S. Embassy, said in an interview that foreign diplomats, including U.S. Ambassador Tim Carney, had started talks with Preval. 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 Manigat about the possibility of withdrawing from a second round of voting.

Now they have a clear winner. It was too obvious what they were trying to do. They knew they would not get away with it, apparently.