Haitian President-elect Rene Preval worked to smooth the roiled political waters that followed his turbulent election victory, meeting in private with political leaders as Haitians waited to hear his plans to form a new government.
Preval continued to keep a low profile on Friday. A day after being declared the winner of the Feb. 7 elections, he postponed a news conference until Wednesday and remained inside his sister's gated house in Peguy-Ville, a suburb in the hills east of the capital, where he has been meeting with politicians of various stripes.
Among them was Chavannes Jeune, who finished fourth in the election with about 5 percent of the vote.
PHOTO: AP
Haitians, meanwhile, waited to hear how Preval plans to deal with violence and poverty in Haiti and his stance on his former mentor, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former slum priest living in exile after being ousted as president by a violent rebellion two years ago.
"Preval has always preached reconciliation," said Volcy Assad, Preval's campaign manager.
"It's logical that he's meeting political leaders," Assad said.
Fritz Longchamp, one of Preval's campaign coordinators, said that the president-elect wants to forge a parliamentary coalition.
"He has begun a dialogue with some political leaders," Longchamp said, without elaborating.
In New York, the UN Security Council said it looks forward to working with the new government and called on Haitians to redouble their efforts to promote political dialogue and national reconciliation.
A statement adopted by the 15 council members applauded the Haitian people "for their patience and continuing commitment to democracy."
More details emerged, meanwhile, on the behind-the-scenes negotiating that led to Preval being declared the winner earlier this week, as the troubled Caribbean nation was paralyzed by protests amid allegations results were being rigged to deny him a first-round victory.
Preval had been a hair short of an outright majority with more than 90 percent of the vote tabulated. Haitian officials decided in a meeting on Wednesday to divide the 85,000 blank ballots cast among the candidates in proportion to the percentage they had already received. That gave Preval just over 51 percent and outright victory.
If Preval had fallen short of a majority, he would have faced a second-round election in March against second-place finisher, Leslie Manigat.
Chilean Ambassador Marcel Young said his country and Brazil sought to resolve the election dispute with Haitian authorities as the nation teetered on the brink of upheaval, with tens of thousands of Preval supporters taking to the streets claiming fraud.
"We expressed our worry and I think it produced healthy dialogue and helped lead to a quick solution," Young said.
Manigat, also a former president, has accused election officials of breaking the rules to give Preval a first-round victory.
Charles Henri Baker, the third-place finisher, all but accused Preval of fraud.
"There was no clear winner in the first round," Baker said.
"What happened was that Haiti's future president took hold of the results," he said.
Maryse Narcisse, a spokeswoman for Aristide, declined to say whether Aristide and Preval had been in contact.
The US government believes that the return of Aristide could destabilize the country and has hinted that he should remain in exile in South Africa.
"President Jean-Bertrand Aristide will make a statement next week," Narcisse said by phone from New York.
REBUILDING: A researcher said that it might seem counterintuitive to start talking about reconstruction amid the war with Russia, but it is ‘actually an urgent priority’ Italy is hosting the fourth annual conference on rebuilding Ukraine even as Russia escalates its war, inviting political and business leaders to Rome to promote public-private partnerships on defense, mining, energy and other projects as uncertainty grows about the US’ commitment to Kyiv’s defense. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy were opening the meeting yesterday, which gets under way as Russia accelerated its aerial and ground attacks against Ukraine with another night of pounding missile and drone attacks on Kyiv. Italian organizers said that 100 official delegations were attending, as were 40 international organizations and development banks. There are
The tale of a middle-aged Chinese man, or “uncle,” who disguised himself as a woman to secretly film and share videos of his hookups with more than 1,000 men shook China’s social media, spurring fears for public health, privacy and marital fidelity. The hashtag “red uncle” was the top trending item on China’s popular microblog Sina Weibo yesterday, drawing at least 200 million views as users expressed incredulity and shock. The online posts told of how the man in the eastern city of Nanjing had lured 1,691 heterosexual men into sexual encounters at his home that he then recorded and distributed online. The
TARIFF ACTION: The US embassy said that the ‘political persecution’ against former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro disrespects the democratic traditions of the nation The US and Brazil on Wednesday escalated their row over US President Donald Trump’s support for former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, with Washington slapping a 50 percent tariff on one of its main steel suppliers. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva threatened to reciprocate. Trump has criticized the prosecution of Bolsonaro, who is on trial for allegedly plotting to cling on to power after losing 2022 elections to Lula. Brasilia on Wednesday summoned Washington’s top envoy to the country to explain an embassy statement describing Bolsonaro as a victim of “political persecution” — echoing Trump’s description of the treatment of Bolsonaro as
CEREMONY EXPECTED: Abdullah Ocalan said he believes in the power of politics and social peace, not weapons, and called on the group to put that into practice The jailed leader of a Kurdish militant group yesterday renewed a call for his fighters to lay down their arms, days before a symbolic disarmament ceremony is expected to take place as a first concrete step in a peace process with the Turkish state. In a seven-minute video message broadcast on pro-Kurdish Medya Haber’s YouTube channel, Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), said that the peace initiative had reached a stage that required practical steps. “It should be considered natural for you to publicly ensure the disarmament of the relevant groups in a way that addresses the expectations
RSS