9 December 2010 Last updated at 17:57 ET


Haiti orders recount of disputed presidential election


Haitians walk past a burning barricade in Port-au-Prince during protests against the election result More than half of the 19 candidates have called for the result to be annulled


Election officials in Haiti say they will review the disputed result of last month's presidential election.

There will be an immediate vote recount in the presence of the top three candidates - Mirlande Manigat, Jude Celestin and Michel Martelly - and international observers.

The announcement follows violent demonstrations by supporters of Mr Martelly, the third-placed candidate.

He alleges the count was rigged to deny him a second-round run-off place.

The Provisional Election Council said it had "decided to immediately launch a rapid and exceptional process to verify at the counting centre the tally sheets linked to the 2010 presidential elections".

More than half of the 19 candidates in the ballot on 28 November have been calling for the result to be annulled.

The strongest protests have come from supporters of pop star Mr Martelly, known to his supporters as "Sweet Micky," who was widely expected to go through to the second round.

The results announced on Tuesday night gave 31% to the former first lady, Ms Manigat, with the governing party candidate, Mr Celestin, in second place with 22%.

Mr Martelly came third with 21%, about 6,800 votes short of Mr Celestin.
Burning barricades

Violence erupted almost immediately after the results were made public.
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Analysis
image of Mark Doyle Mark Doyle BBC International development correspondent

Most independent observers were sceptical when the government's presidential candidate Jude Celestin came through the first round of voting at the expense of streetwise pop star Michel Martelly.

Two days of anti-government protests followed, which led to the closure of the airport and other businesses.

On Wednesday the protesters got support from the highly influential US embassy in Port-au-Prince.

The results of the first round, the embassy said, were inconsistent with the projections made by respected local and international observers. It was probably this pressure from the US embassy which led the electoral commission to order a recount.

What happens next is far from clear. One option, depending on the result of the recount, is that first round may turn out to have been so close that not two but three candidates may stand in the decisive second round runoff.

Thousands of supporters of Mr Martelly took to the streets of the capital, Port-au-Prince, setting up burning barricades and clashing with UN peacekeepers.

On Wednesday, the headquarters of the governing party in Port-au-Prince was set on fire and the international airport was closed because of the unrest.

There was also violence in several other cities.

Canada on Thursday said it was closing its embassy in Port-au-Prince, due to the protests in the country's capital.

Mr Martelly urged his supporters to hold only non-violent protests.

He accused the election commission of "plunging the country into crisis with its incorrect results".

The outgoing president Rene Preval appealed for calm and defended the result.

Mr Celestin is widely seen as Mr Preval's hand-picked successor.

Most observers said the first round of voting was grossly mismanaged, with widespread irregularities.

The US embassy said on Tuesday it was concerned the results were "inconsistent" with vote counts around the country.

The run-off is due to take place on 16 January.

A successful election is seen as crucial to establishing an effective government in Haiti after years of instability.

Whoever becomes president will face the task of rebuilding the country after the devastating earthquake that killed around 230,000 people last January, as well as battling a cholera epidemic.

Haiti On Edge Amid Disputed Election Results

by Jason Beaubien




Commerce returned to Port-au-Prince this week after three days of violent street protests paralyzed the Haitian capital following the Dec. 7 release of disputed presidential election results. Haiti's election officials are trying to break an impasse over the presidential contest amid allegations that the ruling party of President Rene Preval rigged the results in favor of a handpicked successor.

December 15, 2010

A political standoff continues in Haiti after the disputed Nov. 28 presidential election. Election officials have announced that they will recount the votes, and they have extended an appeals process for candidates who failed to make it into the Jan. 16 runoff.

Two of the top three vote-getters, however, say they are refusing to participate in the recount, citing "massive fraud" at the polls.

Last week, riots shut down Port-au-Prince. This week, a tense calm has settled on the streets of the Haitian capital.
Last Week's Unrest In Haiti

Credit: David Gilkey/NPR

"Stuck. We are stuck. We are at an impasse," says Richard Widmaier, head of the independent media company Radio Metropole, summing up the state of Haiti's presidential selection process.

Musician At Center Of Impasse

The elections disintegrated into chaos on Nov. 28 when, after the polls had only been open for a few hours, 12 of the 18 presidential candidates called for the voting to be canceled. The candidates accused the ruling party of rigging the election in favor of its own candidate, Jude Celestin.

When the preliminary results were released last week, 70-year-old Mirlande Manigat, a law professor and former first lady, emerged as the front-runner.

Supporters of third-place finisher Michel Martelly barricaded the streets of the capital for three days straight. Martelly finished just behind Celestin in the official results, and thus was eliminated from the second round of the race.

"Six months ago, nobody ever thought Martelly would have any importance within the electoral process itself," Widmaier says.

The 49-year-old musician known as "Sweet Micky" is now at the center of the political impasse.

Martelly is proposing that instead of a runoff on Jan. 16, as currently mandated by law, Haiti should just redo the entire election. But Martelly says that first, the Electoral Council should be fired. "We don't trust those people anymore," he said in Creole. And he added that the council has lost the trust of the Haitian people.

So far, President Rene Preval has stood by his election officials and hasn't made any indication that he'll appoint new ones.

Simmering Violence
U.N. forces try to calm the crowd outside an election center
Enlarge David Gilkey/NPR

U.N. forces try to calm the crowd outside an election center in Petionville, a suburb of Port-au Prince, on Dec. 9. Supporters of Michel Martelly, who failed to qualify for an election runoff in results announced by Haitian electoral authorities, took to the streets of Haiti's capital in three days of unrest last week to contest the election results.
U.N. forces try to calm the crowd outside an election center
David Gilkey/NPR

U.N. forces try to calm the crowd outside an election center in Petionville, a suburb of Port-au Prince, on Dec. 9. Supporters of Michel Martelly, who failed to qualify for an election runoff in results announced by Haitian electoral authorities, took to the streets of Haiti's capital in three days of unrest last week to contest the election results.

Last week's raging protests left at least two people dead, dozens injured and the streets littered with burned tires. Almost all shops and businesses were closed for three days.

The capital remains on edge, with many people expecting the riots to resume.

Preval has defended the election results and called for calm.

On Sunday, during Mass at the Catholic Christ the King Church, the Rev. Richard Gerard denounced the violent demonstrations. Preaching in the shell of a grand church that was destroyed in the January earthquake, Gerard said Jesus never rioted in the streets.

"How can we say that we are children of God, that we have been created in his image, while acting like animals of the forest?" he said.

Accusations Of Fraud

This week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. is "frustrated" with the Haitian government over the elections. She warned that Congress may cut international aid to the Preval regime if it fails to ensure the credibility of the polls.

In Haiti, allegations of fraud and criticism of the balloting can be heard across the social spectrum, from vendors in the streets to business leaders.

"The Haitian people, that's all they have as their weapon. They don't have economic power. They don't have social power. They have their ballot," says Reginald Boulos, the head of the Haitian Chamber of Commerce.

Boulos says exit polls conducted by the Chamber of Commerce clearly showed that Martelly, rather than the ruling party's Celestin, should have made it into the runoff.

Boulos says he is saddened that in the aftermath of the earthquake, Haiti is now also dealing with this political crisis.

"We were expecting that everybody, including our government, would remember that 300,000 people died 10 months ago, would remember that 1 million people are still living under tents, and not do what we are seeing right again, trying to steal elections and not letting the people choose who they want as their leaders for the next five years," he says.

He says that the next president is going to have to make some extremely difficult decisions about how to rebuild the country. Boulos says it's more important than ever that that person has the support of the Haitian people.

But for now, it is unclear how the next president is going to be chosen.