PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Haitian electoral officials, plagued by delays and disorganisation, said yesterday that national elections set for January 8 would have to be postponed for a fourth time.

The presidential and legislative elections - the first since the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide nearly two years ago - were to have been held in November, and have since been postponed three times.

Delays in distributing 3.5 million voter ID cards, disorganised voting centres and problems with the voter database were the main reasons why the vote needed to be postponed again, Rosemond Pradel, secretary general of Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council, told The Associated Press.

An official announcement about the postponement had not been made up to yesterday afternoon.

"In public, the date is still January 8, but in private, everybody knows that this won't be the case, and that we probably won't even be able to announce a new date for the elections by then," Pradel said in a telephone interview.

Max Mathurin, chairman of the Provisional Electoral Council, said the council was expected to meet with political leaders late yesterday to explain the situation and discuss a new date for the vote.

"My goal is to clarify the calendar," Mathurin told AP, adding that he wanted to hold elections "as soon as is realistically possible." He said he could not predict what that date would be.

Patrick Fequiere, one of the nine members on the electoral council, also said he did not know when such a date could be.

"We are just beginning to realise the scale of the problems," he said on the telephone, stating the key issue for him seemed to be the scarcity of voting centres.

While 1,200 voting centres were initially planned, it was reduced to 809 because the UN stabilisation mission to Haiti said it could not provide security for more locations, he said.
"That's not enough places, we can't reasonably expect people to walk six or seven hours to a voting centre," Fequiere said.

The United Nations and the Organisation of American States - which are providing most of the logistics for the vote - declined to comment ahead of an official announcement by the electoral council.

In the elections that are funded by the international community, there are 35 candidates for president and hundreds for 129 legislative seats. A new government would replace the interim government installed after Aristide's ouster in February 2004.

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