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Haiti starts counting votes in long-delayed election | |
(about 9 hours later) | |
Officials in Haiti have begun counting the votes cast in Sunday's much-delayed elections. | |
The process is expected to take at least a week as officials tally the paper ballots by hand. | |
The election was delayed for more than a year after the results of the October 2015 vote were thrown out following allegations of widespread fraud. | |
After President Michel Martelly's mandate expired in February, Jocelerme Privert was named interim leader. | |
Big challenges ahead | |
The Caribbean nation was choosing a new president and lawmakers. | The Caribbean nation was choosing a new president and lawmakers. |
The presidential election will probably go to a second round on 29 January as none of the 27 candidates is expected to gain the 50% of the votes necessary to win outright in the first round. | |
Exit polls suggested Jovenel Moise, 47, had an early lead, although the supporters of Maryse Narcisse said their candidate was ahead. | |
Mr Moise enjoys the backing of former President Martelly and belongs to his Parti Haitien Tet Kale (Haitian Bald Head Party). | |
A banana exporter, Mr Moise won the first round of presidential election held in October 2015 but following allegations of fraud, those elections were annulled. | |
Ms Narcisse, a doctor, has the backing of Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and is one of two women running for the top office. | |
Whoever wins the election will face the challenge of reconstructing a country which has been ravaged by natural disasters. | |
The most recent, Hurricane Matthew, destroyed 90% of some of Haiti's southern areas. | |
One voter in that region told Reuters news agency that what people there needed was "aid after the hurricane, because everything was lost". | |
An appeal for donations by the UN has so far failed to raise even half the sum it set out to reach. | |
Voter turnout in the areas worst hit by Matthew last month was low, according to reports. | |
But the president of the electoral council, Leopold Berlanger, said he was satisfied overall with how voting had progressed. | |
In the capital, Port-au-Prince, voters queued from early in the morning to to cast their ballots. | In the capital, Port-au-Prince, voters queued from early in the morning to to cast their ballots. |
"This is my responsibility as a citizen," Alain Joseph, a motorcycle taxi driver in the city, told the Associated Press news agency. | |
Some hours after voting ended, a fire broke out at a market in a suburb of the capital, Port-au-Prince. | |
The cause of the blaze is still unknown. | |