Aristide to stay in SA for now

2006-02-09 12:33

Cape Town - Ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's exile in South Africa might well continue despite Tuesday's elections in his country, Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Thursday.

Briefing the media at parliament, she said it was "problematic" that the largest political party in Haiti - Aristide's Lavalas Family Party - had not participated in the elections.

"It is a pity that Lavalas did not participate. Some of its leaders are in prison, in exile. But we will see what happens," she said.

South Africa would await the outcome of the presidential and parliamentary elections, expected on Friday, and would "see what the new government does".

Meanwhile, Aristide was a guest in South Africa and would remain so.

However, both the South African government and Aristide held that "he is not here for life".

Therefore, it was important to see what happened after the elections, and if the situation was conducive for him to return, he would do so.

Asked what "conducive" meant, Dlamini-Zuma said an assurance of his safety and his ability to lead a normal life in Haiti.

Aristide fled the Americas' poorest country in February 2004, after he was deposed in a bloody revolt, travelling first to the Central African Republic, and then to South Africa where he has lived in Pretoria as a guest of the government since.

According to media reports on Thursday, unconfirmed early results showed former Haitian president Rene Preval having a wide lead in the presidential race, even though results of ballot counts were still being ferried from remote polling places by plane, truck and mule.

The voting, guarded by a 9000-strong United Nations force, was fraught with early delays but largely free of the violence that had plagued the capital since Aristide fled, the reports said.

- SAPA