VOTING in Haiti’s presidential run-off started slowly in some places yesterday, with foreign donors hoping the poll would produce the stability needed to rebuild the earthquake-crippled nation.

Former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide returned home from seven years in exile to a celebrity welcome today, and immediately took a swipe at the decision to bar his political party from the country’s presidential election.

A second-round vote to choose Haiti’s president will not be possible until late February, after the constitutional end of current President Rene Preval’s term, the electoral council says.

More than 100 protesters angered by a dysfunctional election commemorated Haiti’s Independence Day today by burning tyres and demanding that President Rene Preval be arrested.

THOUSANDS of protesters rampaged through the streets of Haiti’s capital yesterday to contest election results, and they torched the headquarters of the ruling government coalition they accused of rigging the results, witnesses said.

Furious supporters of eliminated candidates set fires and put up barricades in the streets of Haiti's capital after officials announced that government protege Jude Celestin and former first lady Mirlande Manigat would advance to a second round run-off in presidential elections.

THE ballot was as crowded as the earthquake-ravaged capital itself, and a collapsed presidential palace the prize.

HAITIANS faced growing concerns of voter fraud ahead of presidential elections tomorrow as the desperately poor nation gripped by cholera struggles to rebuild after a devastating earthquake.