Michel Martelly, a presidential candidate whose supporters led sometimes violent demonstrations in Haiti after he was eliminated from a runoff, called Tuesday for all 17 candidates to participate in a new round of voting in January.
Instead of a runoff between the top two candidates on Jan. 16, Martelly said a new election should be held -- with the candidate getting the most votes winning the presidency.
``It's only like that that I can believe things can recover, that I can have confidence with the retabulation, that the country can reclaim confidence in the electoral process,'' Martelly said at a news conference at his heavily-guarded home in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville.
``If that doesn't happen, I don't believe people can go out in the next election, for it to have legitimacy and respect from the population and international community,'' said Martelly, who finished fewer than 7,000 votes behind second-place finisher Jude Célestin in the Nov. 28 presidential election.
Pending appeals, Martelly has been eliminated from the runoff. But there have been charges that the election was marred by fraud and Martelly's supporters claim the election was stolen from their candidate.
Preliminary election results released on Dec. 7 sparked two full days of unrest that crippled the capital city of Port-au-Prince and a few other cities. Martelly supporters and other anti-government protesters erected burning barricades and threw rocks at cars.
Police say at least two people were killed.
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