Haitians nervously awaited the final outcome of presidential elections yesterday and authorities appealed for calm after Rene Preval, a champion of the poor, dipped below the 50 percent required to win outright.
With one quarter of the votes still to be counted, Preval, a former president, had 49.6 percent of the vote and a huge lead over his rivals, but fell just short of the majority he needs to avert a second round.
This stirred tensions in the volatile Caribbean nation, where thousands of residents of violent slums Port-au-Prince slums took to the streets on Saturday, chanting their conviction that Preval had already won.
Authorities urged Haitians to await and respect the outcome of last Tuesday's presidential and legislative elections.
"I urge the population not to demonstrate so as not to soil such a pure and magnanimous act, because such demonstrations could lead to violence," said electoral council director Jacques Bernard.
While Saturday's marches were peaceful, a senior UN official in Haiti said that if Preval is not elected in the first round "there is a risk of violent demonstrations," particularly in the capital's notorious Cite Soleil shantytown.
"If there is a second round, the most radical elements in Cite Soleil will claim Preval's victory was stolen," he said, asking not to be identified.
Adding to the concern, yesterday was a traditional date for carnival celebrations that usually bring rowdy crowds into the streets.
Should the election go to a runoff, scheduled for March 19, Preval would likely battle it out with Manigat, 75, also a former president.
The partial results gave Manigat 11 percent of the vote, followed by industrialist Charles Henri Baker, with 8.1 percent.
Eddie Dorsalville, who demonstrated his support for the frontrunner on Saturday, was adamant: "Preval has won."
Thirty-year-old Gilbert Vil was equally ecstatic.
"Preval is the messiah," he proclaimed as demonstrators marched in front of the presidential palace, swaying to a tropical drumbeat.
Preval is a one-time ally of Jean Bertrand Aristide, the former president who resigned and fled Haiti in February 2004 amid popular discontent and diplomatic pressure from Washington and Paris.
US officials dismissed suggestions that ties between the two countries would be affected by a possible win by Preval, who was president from 1996 to 2001.
Preval served as prime minister under Aristide in 1991, but his aides say the two men are no longer in contact.
Like Aristide before him, Preval is often seen as a champion of the poor, who make up 77 percent of Haiti's population of 8.5 million.
Despite a late and at times chaotic start after four postponements since November, international observers said the election was a triumph for a dirt-poor country with a history of violence and fraudulent balloting. Authorities estimated turnout at 63 percent of the 3.5 million registered voters.
Largely financed by the international community, the election was closely watched by the UN and its 9,500-strong military and police force in Haiti, deployed in 2004 after the country plunged into chaos.
The peacekeeping force, known as MINUSTAH, has since struggled to restore order to Haiti, losing nine of its men to armed violence blamed on armed gangs.
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