Polls will go ahead despite calls for postponement

Voters are due to elect a new president and members of the legislature on 28 November.

Some 19 candidates are vying to succeed current president, Rene Preval and it is likely that the election will go to a second round run-off on 16 January.

Most candidates have insisted that the elections, which will also choose 99 deputies and 10 senators, should go ahead as planned.

But four candidates have appealed for the election to be delayed so authorities could focus on tackling a cholera outbreak.

The four, none of whom is a front-runner in the 28 November poll, also called for an independent inquiry to establish the origin of the cholera.

Violence
Some Haitians have blamed UN peacekeepers from Nepal, where cholera is endemic, for bringing the disease to their country.

Violence erupted last week, with people setting up barricades and throwing rocks at UN vehicles.

Officials said the security situation there had stabilised.

The cholera outbreak is now known to have killed 1,250 people since last month- and the number is increasing.

UN officials have also said that the violence is being encouraged by forces that want to disrupt the presidential election.

	UN says cholera protests were political

Aid efforts, especially in the worst-hit areas in the north, were disrupted last week by protesters who blame UN peacekeepers for spreading the disease.

UN agencies and other aid groups said the protests were preventing them from carrying out relief work in the Cap-Haitien area, which has the highest fatality rate in the country.

Urgent needs

In the capital, Port-au-Prince, one of the main challenges is to prevent cholera from spreading in the slums and tent camps housing more than one million people left homeless by January's devastating earthquake.

So far the squalid encampments appear to have been spared.

"In all the camps where we have been working since the earthquake, we have not had one single confirmed case of cholera," Raphael Mutiku from Oxfam told the French news agency AFP on Sunday.

However, there are concerns that the peak of the disease has not yet been reached and that people's urgent needs are not being met.

	Efforts continue to prevent cholera from spreading

Over the weekend, international medical charity MSF said the response so far had been "inadequate".

It said swift action was needed to build latrines, provide safe water supplies, remove bodies and reassure frightened people that the disease is treatable.

But the UN agencies have said that their work has been hindered by the recent riots.

Caricom assistance

A month after cholera was confirmed in Haiti, Caricom has signalled that it is mobilising support.

Caricom's chairman, Prime Minister Bruce Golding of Jamaica has said he had been in touch with member governments to coordinate the Community's response to the crisis.

He said Jamaica would send a team of medical and support personnel to Haiti.

Guyana has offered oral rehydration tablets, nurses and doctors.

Caricom envoy to Haiti, P J Patterson, has also appealed to pharmaceutical companies to provide drugs and equipment.

Mr Golding said the cholera outbreak was a threat to the entire region.