Voters scarce in Haitian legislative election

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Apr 21 (Reuters) Haitians trickled in to heavily guarded polling stations today to vote in a parliamentary election that will decide if President-elect Rene Preval has enough support to govern the troubled Caribbean nation.

Polling stations were well staffed and most opened on time at 6 am in the capital, Port-au-Prince.

UN troops in armored vehicles and Haitian police patrolled the voting centers. But few people showed up to cast ballots during the first couple of hours of the run-off vote.

''I and my colleagues have been here since five o'clock but the only problem is that we don't have enough voters,'' said Josue Jonas, a polling station official in Port-au-Prince.

Preval on February 7 won Haiti's first presidential election since former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in an armed revolt two years ago, but he will need supporters in parliament, and an ally in the prime minister that parliament will pick, in order to chart a course for the country.

Only two seats in the 99-seat Chamber of Deputies were decided in the first round of the election in February, with the rest going to the second round on Friday. All 30 Senate seats will also be decided in the runoff.

Police said some candidates who lost or were disqualified in the first round of voting planned to disrupt today's election. There were no reports of violence and the streets of the capital were bustling.

Under Haiti's constitution, the party holding at least half the seats in parliament will pick the prime minister. Final results are not expected until April 28, but no party has enough candidates in the runoff to win the required majority.

Preval, a champion of Haiti's poor masses who is to be sworn in on May 14, has urged candidates from rival parties to form a coalition around his political platform ''Lespwa,'' Creole for hope.

Opponents, many representing the country's wealthy elite and business class, have lobbied just as hard for candidates to join forces against Preval, a former Aristide protege who served a previous term as president from 1996 to 2001.

''I came to vote because President Preval said he needed allies in parliament to govern,'' said Jean Bernardin, 25, in Port-au-Prince. ''If we elected the president, we have to help him have a parliament that can pass good laws.'' Haiti's last parliamentary elections in 2000 were marred by a vote-tallying dispute that was never resolved, leaving the legislative body paralyzed. Discord over subsequent presidential elections helped to undermine Aristide, once viewed as a champion of Haiti's fragile democracy but accused in later years of corruption and despotism.

The new government faces a daunting job of restoring stability to the deeply poor nation, which has been plagued by political violence for most of its 202-year history.

Coups and corruption have stymied attempts at democratic government that followed decades of dictatorship, and an unelected interim government has ruled since Aristide was driven out in 2004.

A UN peacekeeping mission in the country has urged Haiti's 3.5 million registered voters to cast ballots.

But many voters complain that problems encountered in the chaotic first round of balloting remain unsolved. Many said they would have to walk miles (km) to polling stations. Those unsure where to vote were referred to an election Web site, but few Haitians have access to computers.

REUTERS OM RAI2155