PORT-AU-PRINCE: Haitians early Sunday began voting for a new president and lawmakers in an election marred by violence and concerns about fraud, while a cholera epidemic eats away at the earthquake-ravaged country.
Voters will choose a successor to President Rene Preval, who is not running for re-election, as well as 11 of the country’s 30 senators and all 99 parliamentary deputies in the landmark vote.
Balloting began in most of the country shortly before 6:00 am (1100 GMT), as scheduled. However, some polling stations opened late. In the Petionville suburb of the capital Port-au-Prince, people started lining up for voting early.
“It’s important to vote for Haiti,” said Michel Pean, a disabled voter who came to cast his ballot. “I am happy to do it because I helped introduce into electoral law articles that help disabled voters carry out their duties as citizens.”
Authorities have banned motorbike traffic and alcohol sales on election day as extra security measures. Sunday “is an important day for the country’s future,” Preval said Saturday in a recorded broadcast message, urging voters to act with “order and discipline… so election day goes off well and Haiti can move forward.”
Over 4.7 million people are eligible to vote. Results are to be made public from December 5, with the official tally announced on December 20. The new president will lead the poorest country in the western hemisphere, a nation of around 10 million people where 80 percent of the population lives on less than two dollars a day.
Front-runners among the 18 candidates include Jude Celestin, an engineer supported by Preval; academic and former first lady Mirlande Manigat; and Michel Martelly, a popular singer widely known as “Sweet Micky”. The election comes as Haiti battles a cholera outbreak that has claimed at least 1,648 lives.
It is also the first election since a devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake in January killed more than 250,000 people. Campaigning has occasionally turned violent, with at least one person killed and several wounded when gunmen opened fire on a rally for Martelly late Friday, which his spokeswoman said was an attempt on his life.
Two people were shot dead earlier in the week in Beaumont, a small town in southwestern Haiti, when supporters of Celestin and candidate Charles Henri Baker squared off with firearms, rocks and bottles.
