Haiti may postpone presidential vote

PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) -- Haiti likely will postpone presidential elections set for November 26 but will still meet its constitutional deadline to install a new leader in February, an elections spokesman said on Tuesday.

Samuel Louis-Jean, a spokesman for Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), said a revised calendar for the presidential elections in the troubled Caribbean nation would be released on Friday.

"I don't think they will be held on November 26," he told Reuters. "It's not important the elections are held on that date. What date is important, is February 7."

President Rene Preval has said that, no matter what, he will leave office on February 7, the date mandated by Haiti's constitution for the transfer of power.

The United States and European Union have vowed to withhold aid if the impoverished nation of 7.5 million does not strengthen its democratic institutions before the November vote.

A delay had been widely expected by Haiti's opposition parties, which called for a boycott of the presidential election to protest alleged rigging of the May parliamentary elections to benefit the ruling Lavalas Family party of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

"They are talking about holding the election on December 17," said Ariel Henry, a member of opposition party coalition Groupe de Convergence.

Registration of new voters was supposed to begin on October 2 but has yet to start. The electoral council finally published an official list of candidates on Monday, three weeks late.

Seven presidential candidates are on the list -- Aristide and six virtual unknowns.

Five are independents and the sixth, Evans Nicolas, represents the little-known Union for National Reconstruction party. Another, Protestant pastor Arnold Dumas, ran for president in 1995 and drew less than 1 percent of the vote.

Two candidates, Paul Arthur Fleurival and Calixte Dorisca, threatened last week to withdraw from the campaign, saying it was not being taken seriously. The other presidential candidates are Jacques Philippe Dorce and Serge Sylvain.

The lack of a strong challenger, along with a boycott called by most of Haiti's opposition parties, virtually guarantees a victory for Aristide, 47.

He was the Caribbean nation's first democratically elected president after decades of dictatorship and political instability.

Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest, was ousted in a military coup seven months after taking office in 1991 and returned to power by a U.S.-led invasion in 1994. He was constitutionally barred from running for consecutive terms, and Preval, his protege, was elected in 1995.

Most opposition parties are boycotting the presidential election to protest Haiti's May 21 parliamentary vote. They and international election observers said the results were miscounted to give Lavalas seats that should have been decided in runoffs.

The boycott and Haiti's continued use of the electoral council that oversaw the May vote have caused growing concern in the international community.

In addition to choosing the next president, the November election aims to fill nine senate seats.

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