国际英语新闻：Haiti rules Manigat vs Martelly in presidential runoff

SANTO DOMINGO, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) announced Thursday that former first lady Mirlande Manigat and musician Michel Martelly will contest the country's presidential runoff in March.

The announcement means that government-supported candidate Jude Celestin will not be in the presidential runoff, according to reports reaching here from the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.

Last month, Haiti's ruling Inite (Unity) Party announced its candidate, Celestin, was quitting the country's presidential runoff. The decision reportedly was signed by the party's senior members, but not by Celestin.

Haiti held its first round of presidential elections on Nov. 28 last year. According to preliminary results released by the CEP, Manigat from the National Gathering of Progressive Democrats (RNDP), took first place with 31.37 percent of the vote, and Celestin ranked second with 22.48 percent. Martelly was third

The council also gave a go-ahead for the second round of voting.

However, most of the candidates claimed there had been electoral fraud and the international community questioned the transparency of the process, which sparked many protests in the country, leaving at least six people dead.

As a result, the CEP agreed to have the Organization of American States (OAS) verify the electoral process. In January, the OAS presented a report saying that Manigat won the first round with 31.6 percent of the vote, Martelly came in second with 22.2 percent and Celestin had 21.9 percent.

Inite's deputy and senator candidates had urged Celestin to quit and demanded Haitian President Rene Preval accept the report presented by OAS, which suggested that Celestin pull out of the election race.