Reporter's notebook: Haiti on the brink
DISPATCH - People are lining up in front of the few grocery stores that have re-opened, stockpiling food, preparing themselves, as no one knows what will happen next...
Days after fury exploded onto the streets over presidential election results widely believed to be rigged, a slight panic still permeates Haiti’s capital city.
People are lining up in front of the few grocery stores that have re-opened, stockpiling food, preparing themselves, as no one knows what will happen next.
Even before the results were announced Tuesday night, our news team was warned that if the candidate President Rene Preval handpicked, Jude Celestin, won a spot in the runoff, blood would spill.
As it happened, the Haiti’s provisional electoral committee announced Jude Celestin did get into the runoff, with 22.48 percent of the vote, against Mirlande Manigat, who got 31.37 percent.
Click here to view a slideshow of Haiti on fire in post-election fury
One man was shot dead and an estimated eight people were wounded.
That the widely popular Michel Martelly did not make the runoff is also fueling accusations of election fraud.
“Sweet Micky,” 49, is a musician described by Reuters as,”a star of Haiti’s Kompa dance music that fuses African and Latin rhythms, often accompanied by satirical lyrics.” He’s been called a “second Wyclef Jean,” and now a presidential candidate of “the street.”
The street has lost all patience. Consider that 1.3 million people still live in tents. Even the Presidential Palace looks almost exactly as it did right after the earthquake, nearly a year ago.
Add to that the worsening cholera epidemic. Just two weeks ago, our NBC News producer Frank Thorp, saw four dead bodies, one a 10-year-old boy, lying in the street not far from a cholera clinic.
We found villages in the mountains still barely reached since the quake. And though cholera is both treatable and preventable, it has killed more than 2000 people in Haiti so far. Ironically the recent violence could worsen the epidemic as it shut down shops selling clean water.
So perhaps the push for a non-establishment candidate is predictable. It appears many people in Haiti want change, yes, change they can believe in.
Though all flights to and from the U.S. are canceled until Monday, barricades have been removed from all the main roads. The city is quiet, waiting.
The final election results before the runoff are supposed to be released on December 20th.
In the meantime, the most extreme voices here are threatening, if Martelly is not made president, to burn down the city.
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