AMERICA/HAITI - Election details

Port-au-Prince (Agenzia Fides) - About 4.7 million Haitians have the right to vote and to choose a successor to President René Preval along with 11 senators and 99 deputies. The presidential candidate of Haiti, Mirlande Manigat increased his preferences among the electorate to 36 percent, six points higher than the previous survey, while the official candidate Jude Celestin, fell to 20.2 percent, according to results in a new survey released 24 November. In third place, according to opinion polls, is the singer and comedian Michel Martelly, from the Peyizan party (Respuesta Campesina), with 14.2 percent, an increase of five points on the previous survey. Following behind are Jean Henry Céant Renmen Ayiti (Querer Haiti) maintaining 9.2 per cent, and Charles Henry Baker of Respè (Respeto) with 5.8 per cent.
The Haitian diaspora is made up of about four million people; two million live in the United States of America, between 700,000 and one million in the neighbouring Dominican Republic, 450,000 in Cuba and the rest in France and in provinces overseas, according to a study developed in 2008 by Haitian intellectual Georges Anglade.
Of the 4.7 million voters, about 60 percent maintains direct links with the diaspora. Even if they do not have the right to vote, the candidates have shown great interest in them. (CE) (Agenzia Fides 26/11/2010)