Haiti — Popular musician Michel Martelly defeated former first lady Mirlande Manigat in last month’s run-off round of the presidential race, according to figures released on Monday by Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council.
The preliminary results indicate that Martelly won the presidential elections handsomely with 67.57% of the vote. Once this is reaffirmed following the contestation phase of the elections, which will begin in the coming days, Martelly will become the next president of Haiti.
The United Nations peacekeeping operation in Haiti welcomed the release of the preliminary results of the country’s presidential and legislative elections and urged Haitians to continue to show patience and calm in the lead-up to the release of final results, due to be released on April18, 2011.
Meanwhile, there have been mixed reviews in US for the president-elect. CMC reported that some Haitians in New York warned that Martelly could polarise Haitian society.
“He has a double intensity,” said Ricot Dupuy, manager and a host at Radio Soleil, which serves the Haitian immigrant community in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
“Those who love him love him intensely. And those who hate him, hate him intensely,” he said.
Robert Fatton, a Haiti expert at the University of Virginia, who has been following the elections since last year, said, “The key players of yesterday have not vanished.”
Despite his dramatic eruption onto the political scene, Martelly may well be a case of “old wine in a new bottle, but time will tell,” he added.
Other Haitian observers say that the fact that most of the country’s 4.3 million voters sat out the elections cannot be discounted.
