PORT-AU-PRINCE, Dec 18, (IPS) – As counting began Monday of the votes cast in Haiti’s presidential election the country faced up to the next big test of stability – the peaceful transition to a popularly elected sucessor to Jeab bertrand Aristide.

The voting turnout across the country Sunday was reported to be extremly light and exit polls, to no one’s surprise, appeared to guarantee that Aristide’s hand-picked candidate Rene Preval would be the eventuial winner. Official results are not expected until later this month.

A calm, almost complacent, Preval cast his ballot around noon Sunday but did not even take enough time to make a brief declaration to the crowd of journalists surrounding his car.

The great majority of the 14 candidates for president will probably never be heard from again, now that voting is over.

Security measures were all in place by the time the polling booths opened and there was no pressure on the light turnout of voters in an extremely peaceful election.

Even President Aristide’s last-minute appeal did not serve to bring out the crowds onto the streets in this sleepy capital. Five years ago the people came out en masse to celebrate his coming to power.

Around 5:30 Sunday afternoon a cortege of cars with their windows all covered with mud, and preceded by two motorcycle policemen, turned into the main avenue of Sun City, the largest shanty-town slum in Haiti situated northwest of the capital.

The sound of the sirens very quickly attracted the attention of the inhabitants of this bastion of President Aristide. Very quicly hundreds of people joined the cortege, blocking the vehicles from going any further.

Everybody was trying to catch a glimpse through the Toyota’s darkened windows of Aristide, the man whom they had elected president five years ago.

The security guards and the police forced the crowd back to enable the cars to inch their way forward till they finally reached the courtyard of the police station and drew to a halt. There dozens of policemen and Blue Helmets from the U.N. Mission to Haiti mounted guard.

But chants of ‘long live Aristide, served only to greet the new interim chief of the national police force, come to pay a visit to his policemen on duty in Sun City. Of Aristide there was no sign, to the great disappointment of the crowd.

Voter participation in Sun City, like all the other cities, was way down on the 1990 election. In the present political situation, there did not seem sufficient at stake for the more than three million people eligible to vote to bother to turn out to cast their ballots.

The low turnout highlighted the absence of consensus among the various strata of Haitian society, sapped by an economic, political and social crisis.

The refusal of the great majority of political parties to take part in the elections could not alone be blamed for the the indifference of the population to the elections, analysts said.

Ssome commentators close to the government blamed the voting apathy on the confusion created by those in favour of extending President Aristide’s term for an extra three years, which would have meant cancelling the elections, and those in favour of holding them as required by the Constitution, which does not allow a reigning president to serve a secod consecutive terms.

The presidential election itself was judged inopportune by a large number of those questioned as to the reason for the lack of participation by the electors.

‘’We already have a president. The inhabitants of the working- class districts and the peasants still believe that Aristide will remain in power,’’ said Marjorie Jean, a storekeeper from Saint- Marc, a city 90 kms north of the capital, who was recuited to work as an election clerk.

Like the rest of her fellow election workers in the polling booth for the constituency known as the ‘Extended Sawmill’, she did not know how much she would be paid for her day’s work Sunday.

In her polling booth, more or less like the other polling booths IPS visited, the choice of those electors who did vote was no secret to anyone, despite the disappointment expressed when the people learnt that Aristide would no longer be president. This may also be the main reason why so many voters abstained. But the majority of people interviewed they had voted for the candidate put up by Lavalas, the political party supporting Aristide.

One voter Armand Kelange, still has faith in Lavalas. ‘’The cost of living is dear. A pound of refined sugar which used to cost 2.50 gourdes in 1991 today costs 6.50 gourdes. Aristide has not had enough time to do much, but I hope Preval will continue along the same road,’’ he said.

By Monday Preval supporters in Sun City were crying ‘’Victory’’ although official results will be made known in about ten days, and the swearing in of the new president is expected for Feb 7, 1996. (END/IPS/imc/tt/mk/95)

Origin: Rome/HAITI-POLITCS/ ----

[c] 1995, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS) All rights reserved

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