Former Haitian president René Préval fell further below the 50 percent he needs to win outright as the counting of ballots continued yesterday in an increasing tense presidential election.

Smoke from burning tires rose over the teeming capital from impromptu barricades, the United Nations said, as suspicions spread among protesting Préval supporters that the count was being manipulated to stop the one-time ally of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide from winning a first-round victory.

Like Aristide, Préval is viewed as a champion of the impoverished Caribbean country?s poor masses, but he is distrusted by the small and wealthy elite.

With 89.9 percent of ballots counted, Préval?s share of the vote in last Tuesday?s largely peaceful but chaotic election had slipped to 48.7 percent by yesterday morning, the Provisional Electoral Council said on its web site.

When initial results were announced several days ago, Préval held 61 percent of the vote, comfortably over the 50 percent plus one vote needed to avoid a runoff on March 19.

Another ex-president, Leslie Manigat, had 11.84 percent percent and the main candidate for the business elite, industrialist Charles Baker, was at 7.9 percent.

Thousands of protesters marched in the capital on Sunday demanding Préval be named president, and more large demonstrations were possible on Monday.

Preval himself complained that a computer-generated graphic on the Provisional Electoral Council?s web site had him at 52 percent of the vote at the time the director-general of the council was telling the media that Preval only had 49 percent.

?Forty-nine percent, I don?t pass. Fifty percent, I pass,? Préval said on Sunday in his mountain hometown of Marmelade.

Two of the nine electoral council members, Pierre Richard Duchemin and Patrick Féquière, also remarked on the discrepancy and said the vote tabulation was being manipulated.

The council?s director-general, Jacques Bernard, denied the allegations and dismissed rumors he had been bribed.

The election was initially praised by international observers for being surprisingly peaceful. Haiti?s short history of democracy since it flung off the dictatorship of the Duvalier family has been turbulent.

Aristide was ousted by an armed revolt in February 2004 and Washington has urged Préval, if elected, not to allow the former Roman Catholic priest to return from exile. Once viewed as a champion of Haiti?s democracy, he faced rising accusations of corruption and despotism.

Observers have said a runoff could change the dynamic of the election because some of the candidates who oppose Préval have agreed to rally behind the second-place candidate