World

Haitian Elections Announced

March 18, 2000 / 9:03 PM EST / AP

Haitian President Rene Preval has officially set May 21 as the new date for long-awaited legislative and municipal elections, Haiti's first national vote in more than three years, state-run television reported Tuesday.

The elections, originally set for November of last year, have been repeatedly postponed due to problems in registering more than four million eligible voters and equipping them with new picture identification cards.

Haiti's ability to hold the vote has been sorely tested in recent months with frequent street demonstrations, scattered violence and the slaying of Jean Dominique, one of the nation's most popular journalists and a leading advocate for democracy.

The election is considered a key step in Haiti's struggle to shake off decades of dictatorship and military rule. Its first freely chosen president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was elected in 1990, ousted by the military in 1991 and restored by a U.S.-led invasion force three years later.

Haitian National Television reported that Preval set the first round of voting for May 21 with run-off elections on June 25. The May 21 date was announced by the Provisional Electoral Council last week but needed Preval's approval.

Preval has been ruling by decree since January of last year when he shut down parliament to end an 18-month government impasse. He installed a prime minister and cabinet by decree.

Opposition politicians say the government is stalling the legislative and municipal elections in hope of holding them in conjunction with a presidential vote at the end of the year, when Aristide, who remains the nation's most popular politician, is expected to run for and win the presidency.

Candidates for his Lavalas Family party would then have a better chance of winning control of parliament on his coattails, critics say.

Haiti's last national elections, in April 1997, were tainted by widespread fraud. The ongoing political crisis has deprived the poorest country in the Americas of more than $300 million in badly needed international aid, which requires parliament's approval.

Members of Haiti's diplomatic corps visited Foreign Minister Fritz Longchamp on Tuesday to protest rising violence and the inaction of Haiti's four-year-old police force.

On Monday, Alicia Matos, the wife of Spanish Ambassador Rafael Matos, was slightly injured when rocks thrown by protesters on the Canape-Vert road connecting Port-au-Prince and the hilly suburb of Petionville shattered the windshield of the car in which she was traveling.

Protesters blocked the road during most of the afternoon, throwing rocks at passing cars and burning tires after two youths were shot dead allegedly by police in civilian clothes.

"It is not right that during five hours there are rocks being thrown in the street at passers-by in plain view of the police," Canadian Ambassador Gilles Bernier said. "In no country in the world wil you observe such a situation. Why tolerate this in Haiti?"