Violence during Haitian Elections

[bcholmes]

A bystander was killed in a clash between rival Haitian political parties this week, adding to growing concerns about potential violence ahead of next week's Senate elections, police said Friday.

Haitian police in the southern city of Jacmel confirmed that a motorcycle-taxi driver was killed as supporters of President Rene Preval's Lespwa movement fought with the opposing Struggling People's Organization, or OPL.

The incident is under investigation and it is not clear who fired the shots that killed him, but officials believe the unnamed driver was a bystander, police officer Mario Pierre said. He died Wednesday.

Isolated but intense protests by university students also have kept an area in downtown Port-au-Prince awash in tear gas, rocks and gunfire. A 10-year-old boy and at least two protesters have been struck or grazed by bullets as police fired warning shots, and tear gas wafted into an elementary school.

Students are protesting budget cuts and curriculum changes at Haiti's state university medical school. As other supporters joined the protest, they demanded that U.N. forces leave Haiti and that President Rene Preval sign a bill the legislature approved to increase minimum wage to $5 a day from less than $2.

Soldiers and police from the 9,000-member U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti as well as Haitian national police will be sent to every polling place on June 21 to prevent election violence, U.N. police spokesman Fred Blaise said Friday.

Isolated violence was reported in April during the first round of voting for 12 Senate seats. Official turnout was 11 percent. Public transportation was halted that day, making polls unreachable for some, while others chose to stay home and avoid trouble.

Elections were canceled in the central plateau region following unrest and the shooting of a poll worker and have not been rescheduled. Partisans also attacked a rival party worker's car in the Cite Soleil slum.

Police will beef up security this time around, Blaise said.

The elections have been criticized for barring on technical grounds all candidates from exiled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas party.

— Miami Herald

The first round of elections failed to result in a majority win. The provisional elections council (CEP) of Haiti cited election turn-out at 11%, although some sources I've seen have suggested a much lower turn-out than that. Haiti uses (non-instant) runoff voting, so they're back for more rounds of elections.