Port-au-Prince, Haiti – Scuffles broke out and polling stations opened hours late Tuesday as masses of Haitians waited – sometimes in mile-long lines – to vote under the protection of U.N. peacekeepers crouching behind machine guns and patrolling alongside armored vehicles.
Rene Preval, a 63-year-old former president backed by many poor Haitians, is the front- runner, according to pre-election polls. Among 33 other presidential candidates are a factory owner whose slogan is “Order, Discipline, Work,” and another former president ousted in a coup.
Turnout for the vote – called a key step toward steering this bloodied, impoverished nation away from collapse – all but overwhelmed electoral officials. At dawn, when the 800 polling stations were supposed to open, it immediately became apparent the day would not go smoothly. In the upscale Petionville suburb of the capital, members of a crowd of thousands of voters stormed a voting station. Several women fainted.
“The people have voted massively,” Juan Gabriel Valdes, a U.N. special envoy, said after election officials extended the voting period by several hours.
Government officials sought to maintain calm, assuring Haitians that everyone would have a chance to vote. By midafternoon, the process appeared more orderly. U.N. troops were deployed in force.
Election authorities said the problems were largely limited to Port-au-Prince. By early afternoon, all polls across this country of 8.3 million were open, said U.N. spokesman David Wimhurst.
“Voting operations (in the countryside) are normal, with some exceptions,” said Electoral Council President Max Mathurin.
Most voters waited in lines for hours at polling stations in the capital of the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, but some angrily roamed the streets, fuming at being turned away because of myriad problems.
“If these elections are not fair and if the person whom the population wants doesn’t win, houses will burn and heads will be cut off,” said Jean Pierre, an unemployed 33-year-old man who would not give his last name.
