Some 70 to 75 percent of the electorate, however, stayed away from the polls, in contrast to a high turnout for Aristide in 1990. Economist George Werleigh , adviser to the previous prime minister and husband of the present one, and U.S. Ambassador William Swing, in a separate interview, offered similar explanations.

After the President personally endorsed René Préval a few days before the vote, many saw Préval's victory as a foregone conclusion. Many others believe that Aristide, who was exiled for three years by a military coup, should serve out those years now.

Both Werleigh and Swing observed that Haitians are becoming disillusioned. They voted in 1990, but their choice was erased by the coup. They've voted three times previously this year, but daily life for most Haitians remains intolerable.

For the Préval administration, one mantra will be "Se ekonomi an, estipid" (It's the economy, stupid).

Nearly forty years of military kleptocracies have reduced Haiti to penury. Unemployment is estimated at roughly 70 percent. Many families must carry water long distances from polluted sources, and pigs root in mounds of garbage in the streets of Port-au-Prince. Electricity is a luxury that a lucky few enjoy a few hours a day. Telephones are rare and the system is gangrenous.

Even the weather has gotten worse. "Twenty-five years ago, the climate was cooler, there was fog in the mornings on the hills," observed a small businessman recently returned from exile in Montréal. "All the trees have been cut down now, so it's quite a bit hotter here." Poverty drives people to cut down the trees for charcoal, the traditional cooking fuel.

Only the outlaws have guns

high-caliber bullet holes in the wall of a rural priest's house

The other major quandary Préval will face is how to protect the citizenry when only the outlaws have guns. Aristide, in the face of opposition from Washington, rightly did away with the Mafia-like Forces Armées d'Haïti . But the still-green police force carries only revolvers, while many believe that the hit men have heavy weapons cached away. The United Nations force that has kept the peace is scheduled to leave February 7.

"Don't forget that the death squads are still here," said Father René Soler , a French priest. "They've begun to kill well-known people again. The seven thousand soldiers of the Army are still here too. They've lost their jobs and they're angry." The leaders of the 1991 coup that killed at least 4,000 Haitians are only a short plane ride away.

Although most Haitians are grateful to the United States for the military restoration of Aristide, most of Haiti's problems can be resolved only by Haitians, and the best thing the U.S. government can do is to stop playing the rescuer. The U.S. role in arming and training the military and death squads over fifty years, though, leaves a moral obligation to make sure they don't come back. If Haiti requests, the U.N. mandate should be extended beyond February and expanded to include more vigorous efforts to disarm the thugs.

No step-by-step instructions exist for stitching together a dismembered economy while raising the standard of living of the impoverished 80 percent. As Aristide's pre-coup prime minister, Préval made a good start at clearing the zombi cheques (ghost employees) out of the government ministries and beginning a land reform for small farmers. But his job will require listening to his own people, and not all Haitians agree with the neo-liberal orthodoxy enforced by U.S. Agency for International Development, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Bottom-up development

firewood vendors

Harry Nicolas , a Haitian who works with peasant organizations, favors bottom-up development: "People have never used electricity for refrigeration. Electrification is not our first priority today: first we need to take care of land issues and irrigation and roads. We need to pick up all the trash out there and use it to make biogas for cooking."

Many small rice farmers are losing ground to American rice. Most of this is imported by U.S.-owned firms which, like agribusinesses in most developed countries, benefit from direct and indirect government subsidies. Should Haiti use subsidies or tariffs to keep farmers on the land and out of the slums of Port-au-Prince, will Washington cry protectionism?

In trying to foster the long-term sustainability of the Haitian economy and protect his people, Préval risks the ire of global financial markets. States as poor as Haiti are barely sovereign when it comes to macroeconomic decisions. The rules are made in New York and Frankfurt and Tokyo, and they say that Haiti's role is to export agricultural products that it can grow cheaper than anyone else, and provide cheap labor for offshore assembly industries. If it's lucky, it may be able to process the foods it grows.

If Haiti tries to stimulate domestic consumption, invest in human capital or shelter critical industries--that is, if it does what developed countries did to become developed--it will be branded a pariah and cast creditless into the outer darkness.

The future of democracy here, however, is tightly intertwined with improvements in the standard of living of the poor majority. If Haiti cannot raise it, or is prevented from doing so by Washington, disillusionment could flare into fury. Those on top of the table will raise their assault rifles, and those under it will reach for their rocks and machetes. And from the rotting bidonvilles and the barren countryside, the tempest-tossed will once again set sail across the Windward Passage for Florida.

Peter Costantini is Seattle correspondent for Inter Press Service, a news wire based in Amsterdam. He has previously covered elections in Mexico and Nicaragua.