Haitians vote in critical elections
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Haitians went to the polls on Sunday to elect a new president and lawmakers in the earthquake-ravaged Caribbean nation.
About 1,500 polling stations across the country opened at 6:00 a.m. local time (1100 GMT) for some 4.7 million registered voters to choose a new president, 11 senators and 99 deputies.
The electoral process was being observed by differen international organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Caribbean Community (Caricom).
The elections encountered mishaps at some polling stations, such as people not finding their names on the lists and the ballots not arriving on time.
Nonetheless, Edmond Mulet, head of the UN's peacekeeping mission, said the elections were "going well" and the turnout should not be affected by some minor problems.
Election authorities were expected to release preliminary results in early December, and the official results would come in about two weeks. Should no presidential candidate win at least 50 percent of the votes, a runoff will be held in January 2011.
Under Haiti's constitution, the president is elected for a five-year term and is not allowed to stand for immediate re-election.
According to prior opinion polls released by local media, Mirlande Manignat, the only women among the 18 presidential candidates, enjoyed the most popularity among the Haitian public at 30.3 percent.
Next to her, the surveys showed, were Jude Celestine, who was supported by the current government, with 21 percent, and Michel Martelly, with 10.8 percent.
Sunday's elections, originally scheduled for Feb. 28, were dubbed a landmark event in Haiti, which is struggling both in the fallout of a massive earthquake in January and in the throes of an ongoing cholera epidemic.
The January tremor killed over 200,000 in the poorest country in the Americas, and the raging disease have claimed over 1,600 lives during the past two months.
