</s>PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Voters will have their say Sunday in a repeatedly derailed presidential election that leaders hope will get Haiti’s shaky democracy on a sturdier track.

The Caribbean nation’s roughly 6 million registered voters don’t lack for choice: 27 presidential candidates are on the ballot. The top two finishers will meet in a Jan. 29 runoff unless one candidate in the crowded field somehow manages to win a majority of the votes.

No results are scheduled to be released for eight days, but electoral council director Uder Antoine has said it might take longer.

The balloting will also complete Parliament as voters pick a third of the Senate and the 25 remaining members of the Chamber of Deputies.

Results of last year’s presidential election were disputed and then annulled after a special commission reported finding what appeared to be significant fraud and professional misconduct.

Most Haitians typically stay away from the polls, in part because they are repelled by the chronic ineffectiveness and broken promises of their elected officials. But there are Haitians who say they are determined to vote, hopeful new leaders might be able to relieve Haiti’s chronic poverty and political turbulence.

“Nothing will stop me from voting. We all have to step up and help solve Haiti’s problems,” said Mickenson Berger, who has been cutting hair on a Port-au-Prince street corner since his barber shop was destroyed in the devastating 2010 earthquake.

Haiti has had a caretaker government for nearly a year, and the new president will face a slew of immediate and long-term challenges.

With the depreciation of the currency, the gourde, the cost of living has risen sharply. Haiti is deeply in debt and public coffers are largely depleted. The southwest is in shambles from last month’s Hurricane Matthew and parts of the north have been battered by recent floods.

Haiti is the poorest nation in the hemisphere and one of the most unequal in the world.

“Public institutions remain weak, and life-crushing poverty remains the daily reality of most of its citizens. Environmental degradation has left the population and the country’s productive infrastructure highly vulnerable to shocks,” said Robert Maguire, a Haiti expert who is an international affairs professor at George Washington University.

A revamped Provisional Electoral Council, known as the CEP, has gotten high marks for organizing Sunday’s vote with some $25 million from the government. It replaced a council that was marred by internal discord and widespread allegations of fraud.

“So far, this CEP has done a good job. Their credibility is very high,” said Rosny Desroches of the Haitian group Citizen Observatory for Institutionalizing Democracy, which will have 1,500 observers monitoring the national vote.

Delegations from the Organization of American States and the Caribbean Community are here to watch the election. The European Union withdrew its monitors in frustration earlier this year after officials annulled results from the 2015 vote.

As always with Haitian elections, security is a big concern. The Haitian National Police, which has been strengthened with international assistance, is playing a far greater role in maintaining security than it did in previous electoral cycles.

A total of 2,026 U.N. police officers and 1,468 peacekeeper troops will assist nearly 9,500 members of Haiti’s police force maintain security. There will also be some 5,400 security agents conscripted by the Provisional Electoral Council to help keep order at voting centers.</s>A voter shows her electoral documents to national police officers before entering a voting station in the Petion-Ville suburb of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2016. Haiti's repeatedly derailed presidential election got underway more than a year after an initial vote was annulled. (AP Photo/Ricardo Arduengo)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haiti's repeatedly derailed presidential election finally went off relatively smoothly Sunday as the troubled nation tries to get its shaky democracy on a firmer foundation after nearly a year of being led by a provisional government.

Polls closed late in the afternoon, and election workers set to work on an archaic and time-consuming process of counting paper ballots in front of political party monitors. The schools serving as voting centers where they gathered were lit by lanterns, candles and flashlights.

No official results were expected to be issued for eight days, and Provisional Electoral Council executive director Uder Antoine has said it might take longer than that.

Voter turnout appeared paltry in much of southwestern Haiti, which was ravaged by Hurricane Matthew last month and was drenched by rain Sunday. But in the crowded capital of Port-au-Prince and other areas, voters formed orderly lines and patiently waited to cast ballots even as some polling centers opened after the 6 a.m. scheduled start.

"This is my responsibility as a citizen," said Alain Joseph, a motorcycle taxi driver and father of four who wore a bright pink sweatshirt to show his loyalty to the Tet Kale party of former President Michel Martelly. Pink is the faction's color.

Police reported some isolated incidents of voter intimidation and disruptions, including an attempt to burn a voting center in the northern town of Port Margot.

Across the country of over 10 million people, there were 43 arrests for various charges such as illegal gun possession and assault. Hours after voting ended, a major fire raged at a central market in the hillside Petionville district above Port-au-Prince but the cause wasn't immediately clear.

Leopold Berlanger, president of the electoral council, told reporters that authorities were satisfied with how the day progressed even though balloting could not take place in two isolated districts. He said officials would examine complaints by people who couldn't find their names on voter lists.

In Cite Soleil, a volatile slum on the edge of Port-au-Prince where voting sometimes has slid into chaos, balloting was so brisk and orderly that even some polls workers were stunned.

"I have to admit, I'm a little surprised just how smoothly things are going," said Vanessa Similien, an electoral office worker who was monitoring voting at a school in the desperately poor district.

The Caribbean nation's roughly 6 million registered voters did not lack for choice: 27 presidential candidates were on the ballot. The top two finishers will meet in a Jan. 29 runoff unless one candidate managed to win more than 50 percent of the votes or got the most votes while leading the nearest competitor by 25 percentage points.

The balloting will also complete Parliament as voters pick a third of the Senate and the 25 remaining members of the Chamber of Deputies.

Helene Olivier, 72, said she was inspired to vote for the first time in her life in hopes a woman could tame Haiti's fractious politics. She said Fanmi Lavalas candidate Maryse Narcisse, one of two female presidential contenders, would improve the nation because of her gender.

"Women protect women. They make good changes. The men, they boss you and beat you too hard," Olivier said after casting her ballot at a high school in Petionville.

Results of an October 2015 vote were annulled earlier this year after a special commission reported finding what appeared to be significant fraud and misconduct.

Haiti has had an anemic caretaker government for nearly a year, and the new president will face a slew of challenges.

With the depreciation of the currency, the gourde, the cost of living has risen sharply. Haiti is deeply in debt and public coffers are largely depleted. The southwest is in shambles from last month's Hurricane Matthew and parts of the north have been battered by recent floods.

In Bel Air, a rough hillside neighborhood of shacks in downtown Port-au-Prince, a group of men playing dominoes said their biggest hope from a new administration was simply regular garbage collection.

"All I know is the next government needs to start picking up the trash around here again. Under the interim government, we've had no garbage collection here at all," said Nicolas Michel, a math teacher and part-time welder.</s>A customer checks sugar cane sold by a street vendor next to posters of presidential candidate Jovenel Moise of PHTK (Bald Head Haitian Party) before the election in a street of Les Cayes, Haiti, November 19, 2016. REUTERS/Andres Martinez Casares

LES CAYES, Haiti (Reuters) - Haiti held a long-delayed election on Sunday amid scenes of devastation in parts of the country, with voters hoping a new president will lift the economy after a destructive hurricane and more than a year of political instability.

First held in October 2015, the election was annulled over allegations of fraud, and a rescheduled vote was postponed last month when Hurricane Matthew struck, killing up to 1,000 people and leaving 1.4 million needing humanitarian aid.

Homes, schools and farms across southwestern Haiti all bear the scars of Matthew, which piled fresh misery onto the nation of more than 10 million on the western half of the island of Hispaniola still recovering from a major earthquake in 2010.

"We are in a political crisis. We need an elected government to get out of this situation," said 19-year-old Launes Delmazin as he voted for the first time in a school in Les Cayes, a southwestern port ravaged by Matthew last month.

Polling stations were due to open at 6 a.m. local time (6.00 a.m. ET), although some were slow to do so. Some people in the capital, Port-au-Prince, complained they were unable to vote because their names did not appear on lists at the stations.

Still, early indications from electoral observers suggested the balloting was proceeding more smoothly than last year.

More than two dozen candidates are competing to succeed Michel Martelly, who left the presidency in February. Since then, a caretaker government has run the country.

Local opinion polls are viewed with skepticism by civil society groups, though a recent survey by pollster BRIDES made local entrepreneur Jovenel Moise the favorite to take the presidency for Martelly's Bald Heads Party in the first round.

Among his competitors are the onetime boss of a government construction company, Jude Celestin, former senator Moise Jean-Charles, and Maryse Narcisse, a doctor backed by ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) said on Thursday preliminary results of the vote are not expected until Monday.

Unless one candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote or wins by at least 25 percentage points, a second round run-off is in prospect for the top two finishers on Jan. 29. The victor is scheduled to take office in February.

Officials said the lingering effects of the hurricane risk depressing voter turnout in the poorest country in the western hemisphere, where democratic participation is generally low.

Haiti's political leaders urged people to get out and vote.

"Today is the day when the Haitian people are called to choose between chaos, anarchy or political stability," said interim President Jocelerme Privert, who is not running.

In Damassin on the southern coast, house after house was covered with tarpaulin, downed trees lined roads and the polling center, a school, was filled with debris and had no roof, forcing officials to move the vote to a small blue tent outside.

"The country has been destroyed," said Luc Albert Jean-Claude, a 74-year-old farmer casting his vote in Damassin. "We want the country to return to a normal state."

To safeguard voting in a country with a history of electoral violence, around 13,000 officers from the national police and the United Nations were mobilized for Sunday.

Justice Minister Camille Edouard told Reuters "at least a dozen" people had been arrested on suspicion of trying to commit electoral fraud or tamper with the process.

However, OCID, a group observing the elections, said in a initial review that most polling stations were operating normally and that they had logged less than a quarter the number of complaints registered at this point in October 2015.</s>In a classroom of a devastated local college, an instructor is impressing upon a group of construction workers that the earthquakes and other natural disasters that seem to inflict disproportionate pain on the people of Haiti are not “God’s wrath”.

It has been just over a month since Hurricane Matthew laid waste to the coastal city of Jérémie, killing more than 1,000 people in the region and destroying the flimsy homes of thousands of families, including scores who have taken refuge in the college and in other schools or public places.

Yet to the disbelief of people focused on the day-to-day task of recovery and basic survival, many of these same buildings are to be transformed on Sunday into voting booths for a Haitian presidential election that was postponed after the hurricane made landfall on 4 October.

“It rains every day, there are landslides, a shortage of food and people’s conditions are miserable,” said Louisiane Nazaire, a local mother and community leader in a farmers’ organisation. “Some have lost everything, including their identification cards, and yet we’re expected to believe that people are going to stand in line under the rain at voting centres that have not even been secured.”

In the western hemisphere’s poorest country, mention of the politically seismic presidential election that has just taken place a two-hour flight away in the US is met with a shrug. And yet there are echoes of that event in some of the concerns being voiced in Haiti – namely around women’s political representation (the Haitian parliament is entirely male) as well as misogyny and physical violence.

“Gender-based violence is a huge issue at any time in Haiti but it seems to increase during the election season,” said Ismeme Elismar, an engineer who has trained with support from the NGO ActionAid and is now working with the organisation in Jérémie to construct long-term safe spaces for women and children who have been at a greater risk from violence in the hurricane’s aftermath.

“For example, female candidates don’t campaign at night, when women are at a higher risk of violence and sexual assault.”

Until this week, Jérémie had seen little election campaigning of any sort in comparison with the Haitian capital of Port au Prince, which emerged from the hurricane unscathed, and where political bunting and posters are in evidence everywhere.

On Wednesday, however, when residents of the so-called “city of poets” looked up, clouds of leaflets for one of the presidential candidates fluttered to earth, dropped from a small plane. Meanwhile campaigning was ramping up around the country, including in many other hurricane-stricken areas of the south where tensions surrounding the roll-out of aid have boiled over, sometimes fatally. In the southern city of Les Cayes, a young teenage boy was shot and killed on 1 November as a crowd attending the distribution of food became restless. Just a few days earlier, at the Port town of Dame-Marie, a teenage girl was killed and three others were shot in a similar incident.

This Sunday’s vote – which is accompanied by voting for a section of seats in Haiti’s senate – come after presidential elections were repeatedly delayed. Results from October 2015 were scrapped after a number of frontrunners asserted that the first round’s results were fraudulent, forcing a rerun.

On Wednesday, Haiti’s interim president, Jocelerme Privert, called on citizens to go to the polls this Sunday, describing them as “fundamental to the future of democracy in the country”.

He linked the election of a new government to stability, desperately needed to meet the challenges of rehabilitating and repairing Haiti’s infrastructure.

Recent polls have put Jovenel Moïse, of the formerly ruling Haitian Tèt Kale Party, in pole position, although he would have to go into a runoff in December if he fails to get more than 50% of votes. Other polls have showed varying levels of support for his opponents including a strong showing in one for Maryse Narcisse.

Some voters have harboured suspicions that opposing political factions have sought to use aid as leverage for securing support in some areas.

Sebastian Rhodes Stampa, disaster coordinator for the UN’s humanitarian affairs office, said: “We are acutely aware that there is the issue of politicisation of aid and we have our means to ensure that it does not impact on what we are trying to do here.

“There will always be, in any political process, those who try to use aid, and aid allocation, to support their own ends. We are not seeing that on any serious basis but it’s something we would counter if we did.”
Voters in Haiti go to the polls for the first round of a presidential election.