PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Gunmen disrupted the final campaign rally in Haiti of a charismatic presidential contender, stoking tensions on the eve of today’s elections in a nation racked by cholera and political uncertainty.
Supporters of popular musician Michel ‘Sweet Micky’ Martelly ran in panic, along with the candidate and his family, when bursts of gunfire interrupted his rally late on Friday in the southern city of Les Cayes, witnesses said yesterday.
Les Cayes police chief Rony Cineac said no one was killed or wounded in the shooting, the latest violence to blight the run-up to the presidential and legislative elections in the poor earthquake-ravaged Caribbean nation.
Martelly’s campaign called the incident an attempted attack against him and said witnesses recognized a bodyguard of a local senator of outgoing President Rene Preval’s Inite (Unity) coalition as being one of the armed men present.
But there was confusion over how the shooting started and exactly who had fired.
“There was quite a bit of machinegun fire and handgun fire and quite a lot of people running all over the place,” Martelly’s cousin Richard Morse told reporters yesterday.
“We want a peaceful election process,” he added.
Martelly, 49, a star of Haiti’s Kompa dance music, has been drawing large, boisterous crowds during his campaign. He is one of several frontrunners in a varied field of 18 presidential candidates, with the open race making it very likely there will have to be a deciding run-off in January.
Today’s vote in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest state faces daunting security, health and organizational challenges, not least a raging cholera epidemic that has killed some 2,000 people and is worsening, according to United Nations experts.
Amid the sporadic violence, a staple of Haiti’s volatile politics, confusion also appeared among many of the 4 million registered voters over where they should cast ballots in a country still recovering from a massive earthquake in January.
Some violence has been directed at UN peacekeepers from Nepal, whom protesters blame for bringing cholera to Haiti. The United Nations says no conclusive evidence supports this.
Haiti’s government, the UN peacekeeping mission and international observers all argue it is better for the election to go ahead as scheduled — despite the many challenges — than to risk a chaotic political vacuum by postponing it.
Other presidential frontrunners are 70-year-old opposition matriarch Mirlande Manigat, a former first lady who some polls have leading the race, and 48-year-old government technocrat Jude Celestin, a protege of Preval.
Accusations of fraud and violence — most directed against Celestin and Preval’s Inite platform — have been flying. The government and UN officials have appealed for calm.
