World

For Haiti, It's Aristide  Again

November 27, 2000 / 2:53 PM EST / CBS

Ten years after he became Haiti's first freely elected president and six years after a U.S. invasion returned him to power following a coup, former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide won re-election with nearly 92 percent of the vote, the electoral council announced Wednesday.

The runner-up, Arnold Dumas, had just 2.4 percent of the vote in Sunday's elections and the other five candidates, less than 5 percent each.

Candidates have three days to contest the results of an election conducted without the blessing of the United States and other donors, and amid opposition charges of vote-rigging and dismal turnout.

Aristide was toppled in a 1991 military coup and restored to power after a U.S.-led invasion in 1994. Forced out in 1996 by term limits, he handed the reins to his hand-picked successor, Rene Preval, the incumbent in Sunday's vote.

After threatening to cut aid following a disputed vote count in May legislative elections, the United States and other donors warned a disputed presidential contest could raise questions about the legitimacy of Aristide's government.

But in a sign the international community was prepared to give Aristide a chance, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said Monday, "We're glad (the elections) went ahead as planned and that there was relatively little violence."

The Organization of American States stressed "the need to ensure the broad political representation and citizen participation critical to the development of Haitian democracy."

Opposition parties have boycotted the process since May, when Aristide's party won 80 percent of the legislature in a vote they charged was rigged to ensure one-party rule. Aristide ran for president against six unknowns.

Earlier this week, Aristide moved to dispel fears he will rule Haiti as a dictator.

"There will be a place for everyone in my government," Aristide said Monday at his first news conference since 1994. "To have a peaceful Haiti, the opposition is indispensable...It is part of our democratic fate."

Opposition groups that boycotted the election have accused Aristide of plotting a dictatorship or planning to make himself president for life, echoing the Duvalier family that ruled by terror from 1957 to 1986.

Haiti held the Sunday election without the support of traditional allies like the United States, Canada and the European Union after international observers declared the May vote miscalculated totals in several Senate races that gave Lavalas candidates victories without runoffs.

Still, the few Western observers on hand have not reported significant irregularities in the presidential vote.

"This is the first time Haitian democracy has flown solo and did not crash," said Melinda Miles, of the Washington, D.C.-based Quixote Center, who was part of a team of 25 monitors from the International Coalition of Independent Observers.

The electoral council, which opponents charge iloaded with Aristide supporters, claimed 60.5 percent of more than 4 million registered voters participated.

But some radio stations estimated no more than 10 percent of Haiti's 4 million eligible voters had cast ballots.

The turnout "exploded the myth of Aristide's popularity," said former President Leslie Manigat. "How can he be popular if he can't mobilize the people to vote for him?"

Opposition groups charged that ballot boxes were stuffed and turnout was dismal.

"They are hallucinating," opposition leader Herve Denis said. "The election was illegitimate. Aristide does not have a mandate to govern."

Signaling a cool response to the promise of inclusion, Denis said an opposition coalition would create "a peaceful alternative" to Aristide and his Lavalas Family party.

His statement suggested the country could remain locked in a power struggle that has stymied development and foreign aid and left many Haitians as poor and hungry as ever.

Aristide confronts a mammoth task in keeping his election promise of "peace of mind, peace in the belly."

The poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, with 7.8 million people with per capita annual income of just $400, Haiti has an illiteracy rate of about 80 percent and a similar unemployment rate. Sixty-two percent of its people are underfed, better than only Somalia and Afghanistan, according to the United Nations.