PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - The party of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide announced yesterday it will register a jailed Roman Catholic priest and prominent political activist as its candidate for Haiti's president in elections later this year.

Meanwhile, Haiti's electoral commission said yesterday that presidential and legislative elections scheduled for early November now will take place on November 20 to give voters more time to register. The second round of voting also was pushed back from December to January 3, the commission said.

HAITI - Supporters of Aristide's Lavalas Family political party chant slogans during a news conference at the Aristide Foundation in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, yesterday. Aristide's Lavalas Family political party announced yesterday they will register jailed priest Rev Gerard Jean-Juste as a presidential candidate. (Photo: AP)

Aristide's Lavalas Family party said it would register the Rev Gerard Jean-Juste as its presidential candidate next week, apparently ending a heated internal feud over whether to participate in elections - the first since the bloody February 2004 uprising that helped topple Aristide.

"Even if he is in jail, we will register him," Rene Monplaisir, a Lavalas leader in the pro-Aristide slum of Cite Soleil, told cheering supporters in an assembly hall in Port-au-Prince, the capital.

Jean-Juste, who has been held since July without charge, has said he would run for president only with Aristide's approval.

The priest was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the kidnapping and slaying of prominent Haitian journalist Jacques Roche. Jean-Juste, who was in Miami when Roche was killed, has denied involvement.

It wasn't immediately clear if Jean-Juste could legally register for elections from jail. Max Mathurin, the head of Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council, said candidates usually are required to register in person, but said he would check whether the law allowed an alternative.

In a statement last week, Aristide condemned Jean-Juste's detention and said it shows Haiti's interim government had failed to implement conditions for fair elections. Some party officials interpreted the comment as an endorsement of a Jean-Juste presidential bid.

"The statement proves there is a consensus around Jean-Juste to be our presidential candidate," said former Lavalas senator Louis Gerald Gilles. "Unlike this government, Lavalas has always come to power, thanks to democratic vote, and we will do it again!"

Lavalas had been deeply split over whether to participate in elections. Moderates say participating is the only way for the party to regain power, while more militant members had argued doing so would legitimise a government they say illegally took office after a revolt toppled Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected president.

Lavalas' participation in elections is considered key because the party still enjoys widespread support in Haiti, especially among the vast slums of Port-au-Prince.
More than two million people - or roughly half of Haiti's electorate of 4.5 million - has registered to vote, Mathurin said.

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