AU-PRINCE: Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide returned home from seven years in exile to a celebrity welcome Friday, and immediately took a swipe at the decision to bar his political party from the country's presidential election. Aristide, addressing reporters and a Haitian public that clustered around TVs and radios throughout the country, said the decision not to allow his Lavalas Family party disenfranchised the majority in a sharply divided nation. His remarks were otherwise largely devoted to thanking supporters who stayed loyal to him during his exile and helped engineer his return over the objections of the USgovernment. Haiti's electoral council barred Lavalas from the elections for technical reasons that its supporters say were bogus. Many of its members are boycotting Sunday's runoff election. Still, several people affiliated in the past with the now-less prominent party ran in the first round of the election. Twice elected president and twice deposed, Aristide is a popular but also polarizing figure. The former priest is an advocate of the poor, who make up the vast majority of Haiti's 10 million people.
