Haiti's Top Election Official Flees Nation for U.S.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PORT-AU-PRINCE,
Haiti, June 18 -- Haiti's top election official
has fled the
country, fearing for his life after he refused to approve
results for
last month's contested legislative and local elections, sources
said today.
The election
official, Léon Manus, crossed the border on Friday into the
Dominican Republic
and flew to Miami on Saturday, according to two
diplomats and
a leading Haitian businessman. Friends of Mr. Manus said
he was flying
to Boston today to join a daughter who lives there.
His departure
has cast still more doubt on the fairness of an election that
Haitians hoped
would finally give them a functioning democracy and
unfreeze a half-billion
dollars in international aid held up by a long political
deadlock here.
Publication of
the results of the May 21 election has been delayed, with
opposition parties
charging that the voting and the count were fixed to
ensure a massive
victory for the Lavalas Family party of the country's
former president,
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Despite numerous
irregularities, local and international observers said the
May elections
were acceptable. However, they disputed the electoral
council's method
of determining first-round winners. A second round is
scheduled for
June 25.
"Manus's hurried
departure in fear for his life shows that Haiti is not a
democracy and
expresses a decent man's rejection of manipulated
election results,"
a Haitian economist, Hervé Denis, said today.
On Friday, Aristide
supporters set tires aflame in downtown
Port-au-Prince
to back their demands that results giving Lavalas a
sweeping lead
be published immediately.
There was no
immediate public response today to the flight of Mr.
Manus, president
of the country's electoral council. Few know about it
because there
are no regular radio news reports on Sundays in Haiti.