A tank of U.N. Brazilian peacekeepers is stopped in front of a barricade in Port-au-Prince on Monday. Smoke from burning tyres rose over the capital of Port-au-Prince from impromptu barricades as suspicions spread among protesting former President Rene Preval supporters that the count was being tampered with to stop the one-time ally of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from winning a first-round victory. Preval fell further below the 50 per cent he needed to win the Haitian election outright as the counting of ballots continued on Monday and allegations of manipulation mounted. - REUTERS
(AP):
U.N. POLICE were ordered yesterday to recover election materials, including numbered bags apparently used to carry results, from a garbage dump near the Haitian capital amid charges that last week's presidential elections were marred by fraud.
Associated Press journalists saw hundreds of empty ballot boxes, at least one green vote tally sheet and four empty bags, numbered and signed by the heads of polling stations, strewn across the fly-infested dump eight kilometres (five miles) north of the capital. "That's extraordinary," said U.N. spokesman David Wimhurst.
TROUBLING DISCOVERY
Catherine Sung, a U.N. electoral adviser who works at the main vote tabulation centre, said the discovery of empty bags was troubling because they weren't supposed to be thrown out. "They're supposed to be kept," she told the AP.
Another U.N. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the ballot boxes were probably thrown out legitimately after the vote - and that the green tally sheet was merely a copy of an original given to political party representatives.
Leading candidate Rene Preval has alleged that "massive fraud or gross errors" tainted the results of the Feb. 7 vote- the first since the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide two years ago.
