Aristide party barred from Haiti's February ballot

The political party of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide will be barred from legislative elections scheduled for February 28, Haitian elections officials said on Wednesday. The decision drew immediate criticism from Aristide, a onetime populist hero in Haiti who was ousted in an armed rebellion in 2004. From his exile in South Africa, he asked whether elections officials were trying "to organize an election or to make a selection." Aristide is a former Roman Catholic priest who became Haiti's first freely elected president in 1991 and won a second election in 2000. His Lavalas Family party is still considered the most popular political force in the impoverished Caribbean nation of 9 million people. "The Lavalas Family party will not be allowed to participate in the next election because the electoral council's legal counsel said the party did not meet all legal requirements," electoral council president Gaillot Dorsainvil told local radio stations. He did not specify which requirements the party failed to meet.