Haiti’s elections are set to begin, facing large numbers of individuals without voting cards despite the best efforts of the United Nations. The front runner in Haiti’s election is Rene Preval, formerly of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s Levalas party, an agronomist who led the country from 1996-2001 and was the first president of Haiti to end a term in office, whose platform is negotiation with criminals, whose answers to whether he will allow Aristide to return have been evasive. “There is no military solution,” Preval says, to the problem of gangs, and Preval states that negotiation is called for. The other candidates include Leslie Manigat, who was president for five terms after a military rigged election in 1988, and Guy Phillippe, one of the individuals responsible for the ouster of Aristide in 2004. The United States has remained noticeably silent on the Haitian elections, not lending troops to the 9,000 person UN peacekeeping force.