Long-postponed legislative elections in Haiti got off to a somewhat troubled start Sunday, with at least one polling station ransacked and lengthy delays at others in the impoverished Caribbean nation. The polls, the first since President Michel Martelly came to power in May 2011, are taking place against a backdrop of fear of violence and expected low voter turnout - and they come months after lawmakers left their posts.
Haiti - the poorest country in the Americas - suffers from a history of chronic instability and is still struggling to recover from a devastating 2010 earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people and crippled the nation's infrastructure.
In downtown Port-au-Prince, where many voters were forced to wait more than an hour before they could even enter polling stations, unidentified assailants ransacked one post as voters waited to cast their ballots.
"They came, yelled that the elections had been manipulated by the government," said Dieunel, a worker at the vandalised station who only gave one name.
"They opened the ballot boxes, tore up the ballots. Some people outside threw bottles and stones at us," he said, adding that there was "nothing we could do."
Police and officials from Haiti's provisional electoral council (CEP) arrived to find the schoolyard polling station littered with ballot shreds, which many area residents were picking up and taking away as souvenirs.
Poll officials were unable to say whether the station would reopen Sunday.
Polls opened at 6:00 am (1000 GMT), and were due to close to 4:00 pm. Results were not expected immediately.
Voters beyond the capital were also forced to endure lengthy delays before polling stations opened their doors, as personnel struggled to post candidate lists and set up ballot boxes.
The spokesman for Haiti's provisional electoral council, Richardson Dumel, told AFP he was not anticipating major repercussions from the slow start, and expected delays would be "made up over the course of the day."
Postponed by a crisis between Haiti's executive power and opposition, the elections will determine all members of the Chamber of Deputies and two-thirds of its Senate.