AU-PRINCE, Haiti: Haiti's post-election crisis deepened on Sunday after opposition presidential candidates prolonged the political uncertainty by refusing to participate in a proposed recount. Conservative US politician Sarah Palin, undeterred by a deteriorating security situation and riots that left five people dead, toured the quake-hit Caribbean nation with American evangelical group Samaritan's Purse. The potential 2012 presidential candidate comforted child cholera victims at a clinic on Saturday and visited a camp that shelters victims of the January quake, which killed 250,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless. “I've really enjoyed meeting this community,” Palin said. “They are so full of joy. We are so fortunate in America and we are responsible for helping those less fortunate. Samaritan's Purse is still here doing the tough work.” Palin was accompanied in her tour by leading US evangelist and Samaritan's Purse president Franklin Graham. “I don't know of any people in recent years who have suffered more, and in such a short period of time than the people of this small country, with an earthquake, a hurricane, and now a cholera epidemic,” Graham said. “Anything we do for them, we do it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want the people of Haiti to know that God has not forgotten them. He loves them, he cares for them.” Palin's arrival coincided with the first normalcy in Haiti since President Rene Preval's handpicked protege made it through to a second round run-off in flawed elections, pipping a popular opposition candidate by less than 7,000 votes. Markets and banks opened for business for the first time since violent protests erupted on Tuesday evening when the results were announced. The streets of the capital, eerily bare on Friday as putrid tire smoke lingered in the air, were once again teeming with people Saturday, many of them stockpiling goods, fearful the period of calm may not last long. In a bid to counter the widespread allegations of fraud and stave off further protests, the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) announced plans to add up all the tally sheets in the presence of the three main candidates. Those plans are now in disarray after losing opposition candidate Michel Martelly wrote an angry letter to the election commission, dismissing a process he said would be rigged again. “The solution of this public farce which has already caused some regrettable losses in human lives is certainly not a simple recount of the tally sheets in the possession of the CEP,” he wrote. – Agence France
