Elections intended to show that Haiti is marching toward democracy have deteriorated into chaos, highlighting how far the country still has to go.
Confusion, disorganization, protests and death threats in the first balloting in nearly five years kept hundreds of thousands of Haitians from voting in local and legislative elections Sunday.Many polling stations failed to open on time or at all. Voting continued Monday in the country's north at some remote stations that didn't open until late Sunday, radio reports said.
The chaotic balloting - the first since a U.S.-led force returned President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power after a military coup - raised questions about whether Haiti can hold a free and fair presidential election later this year.
In any case, Sunday's elections seemed likely to produce a parliament whose legitimacy would be questioned by losing candidates - the last thing Haiti needs as it tries to build and bolster democracy.
"It is an understatement to say that these elections have been badly organized," said Michel Soukar, a prominent Haitian historian. "They should be held again, but this time with administrative and technical competence."
Despite the problems, U.S. national security adviser Anthony Lake, traveling with President Clinton in San Francisco, said that given the violence of past Haitian elections, it was extraordinary "that millions of Haitians expressed their political views in safety."
Sunday's vote and the campaigning leading up to it broke the cycle of violence that has characterized previous balloting in Haiti. The election in 1985 turned into a bloodbath that aborted the balloting, and the 1990 campaign was marred by a grenade attack that killed seven people and wounded 50.
Officials began counting ballots late Sunday. At a polling station in Cite Soleil, the capital's worst slum, workers counted by candlelight as shadows danced on the walls of the converted church.
Final results weren't expected for eight to 10 days because all the ballots had to be counted by hand.
Observers for the Organization of American States reported hundreds of voting stations around the country never opened Sunday. Others opened, then closed because of voter boycotts, death threats and reported armed attacks. Some opened as late as an hour before balloting was scheduled to close.
Some polls stayed open hours late, while others closed and began the count.
There also were dozens of reports of voters' names missing from registration lists, candidates' names missing from ballots and minor scuffles.