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<span style="font-weight: bold">News Source: OTGNR - </span>
<span style="font-weight: bold"> Confirmed : Haiti Elections Today ( Observer )...</span>
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) - Presidential campaigning in quakestricken Haiti wrapped up yesterday amid deadly electoral violence, concerns of voter fraud, and a cholera outbreak that has yet to peak.Voters will today choose a successor to President Rene Preval, who is not seeking reelection. Haitians will also elect 11 of the country's 30 senators and all 99 parliamentary deputies in the landmark vote."Today is an important day for the country's future," Preval said in a recorded broadcast message, urging voters to act with "order and discipline... so election day goes off well and Haiti can move forward."The new president will be leading the poorest country in the western hemisphere, a nation of around 10 million where 80 per cent of the population lives on less than US$2 a day.Frontrunners among 18 candidates in the presidential vote 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 250,000 people.At least one person was killed and several wounded when gunmen opened fire on a rally for presidential candidate Michel Martelly, his spokeswoman Karine Beauvoir said yesterday. She described the late Friday attack as an attempt on the candidate's life.In earlier electoral violence, two people were shot dead late Monday in Beaumont, a small town in the southwest, when supporters of Celestin and candidate Charles Henri Baker squared off armed with firearms, rocks and bottles.The violence, however, does not appear to have dampened the spirits of Haitians who want to vote today.A line, twice as long as earlier in the week, snaked down from the police station in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Ptionville as people waited for voter identification cards."I hope I will get my voting card. It is my duty to vote, it is for my country after the cholera and the earthquake," first-time voter Josue Phanon told AFP.He added: "I still don't know who I am going to vote for."Posters of Celestin, who rose to prominence when Preval put him in charge of a task force that cleared roads and helped rebuild after the quake, smile down from nearly every street corner in the capital.The latest opinion poll gave an eight-point lead to Manigat, a long-time opposition leader and former first lady widely respected for her academic career.The electoral commission said Friday that 4,714,112 people would be eligible to vote in the elections.http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...58868604156369
<span style="font-weight: bold"> Confirmed : Haiti Elections Today ( Observer )...</span>
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) - Presidential campaigning in quakestricken Haiti wrapped up yesterday amid deadly electoral violence, concerns of voter fraud, and a cholera outbreak that has yet to peak.Voters will today choose a successor to President Rene Preval, who is not seeking reelection. Haitians will also elect 11 of the country's 30 senators and all 99 parliamentary deputies in the landmark vote."Today is an important day for the country's future," Preval said in a recorded broadcast message, urging voters to act with "order and discipline... so election day goes off well and Haiti can move forward."The new president will be leading the poorest country in the western hemisphere, a nation of around 10 million where 80 per cent of the population lives on less than US$2 a day.Frontrunners among 18 candidates in the presidential vote 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 250,000 people.At least one person was killed and several wounded when gunmen opened fire on a rally for presidential candidate Michel Martelly, his spokeswoman Karine Beauvoir said yesterday. She described the late Friday attack as an attempt on the candidate's life.In earlier electoral violence, two people were shot dead late Monday in Beaumont, a small town in the southwest, when supporters of Celestin and candidate Charles Henri Baker squared off armed with firearms, rocks and bottles.The violence, however, does not appear to have dampened the spirits of Haitians who want to vote today.A line, twice as long as earlier in the week, snaked down from the police station in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Ptionville as people waited for voter identification cards."I hope I will get my voting card. It is my duty to vote, it is for my country after the cholera and the earthquake," first-time voter Josue Phanon told AFP.He added: "I still don't know who I am going to vote for."Posters of Celestin, who rose to prominence when Preval put him in charge of a task force that cleared roads and helped rebuild after the quake, smile down from nearly every street corner in the capital.The latest opinion poll gave an eight-point lead to Manigat, a long-time opposition leader and former first lady widely respected for her academic career.The electoral commission said Friday that 4,714,112 people would be eligible to vote in the elections.http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...58868604156369
