BY DON BOHNING

 WASHINGTON -- The talk is getting tougher and patience growing shorter, within
 the Clinton administration and on Capitol Hill, over continued delays by Haitian
 officials in holding critical legislative and local elections.

 And the longer the elections remain stalled, the more sentiment grows for
 possible sanctions against Haiti, both at the multilateral and bilateral level,
 including economic and diplomatic isolation and the denial of U.S. visas to those
 seen as obstructing the democratic process.

 Two senior administration officials were in Haiti last week delivering the message
 in meetings with President Rene Preval, members of the Provisional Electoral
 Council, political party leaders and representatives of business and civic
 organizations.

 OFFICIAL WARNING

 In a departure statement, Arturo Valenzuela, the top White House National
 Security Council official for Latin America, and Donald Steinberg, the State
 Department's special Haiti coordinator, said they had ``expressed the Clinton
 administration's deepest concern over the continued failure of Haitian authorities
 to agree to a definitive date for legislative and local elections.

 ``They stressed,'' the statement added, ``the importance of holding these
 elections rapidly, in order to seat the parliament by the constitutionally mandated
 date of June 12.''

 ``Failure to constitute a legitimate parliament risks isolating Haiti from the
 community of democracies and jeopardizes future cooperation,'' Valenzuela said.
 Haiti has been without a parliament for nearly 15 months.

 GROWING IRRITATION

 Another sign of Washington's growing irritation over election delays -- even within
 the Congressional Black Caucus, where support for former President
 Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the current Preval government has been the strongest
 -- came earlier this month in a stiff letter to Preval.

 It was signed by Rep. Benjamin Gilman, Republican chairman of the House
 International Relations Committee, along with committee members John Conyers
 and Charles Rangel, both Democrats and both members of the Black Caucus.

 The letter blamed Preval for precipitating the current ``electoral crisis'' by his
 January 1999 action declaring parliamentarians' terms at an end, which effectively
 dissolved Parliament.

 It called on Preval to ensure that parliamentary and local elections be held
 ``without further undue delay'' and that those elections be separate from the
 presidential election to be held later in the year.

 `VITAL U.S. INTERESTS'

 ``The Clinton administration informs us that it will use all diplomatic means to
 respond to those who seek to disrupt or corrupt the electoral process,'' said the
 letter to Preval. ``The administration has our full support to so act to protect vital
 American interests.''

 The two-stage election had once been scheduled for late 1999, then set for March
 19 and April 30 of this year, by agreement between Preval and the Provisional
 Electoral Council. The council subsequently postponed the vote -- apparently
 without consulting Preval -- to April 9 and May 21, saying it was organizationally
 and logistically impossible to meet the earlier dates.

 The new dates provoked a schism between Preval and the council when Preval
 said that he was not consulted and that only he had the authority to set the new
 dates. He argued that preparation for credible elections could not be completed
 by the new April 9 date.

 It is now expected that new election dates -- with the first round likely to take
 place April 30 -- will be announced this week, perhaps today.

 JUNE 12 DEADLINE

 A date more important than the election dates, however, is June 12, when
 Parliament is constitutionally mandated to begin its second session of the year --
 a day described by one observer as the ``drop dead'' date.

 It means that whenever voting takes place, it must occur in time to validate the
 results so that elected parliamentarians can be seated on June 12. That could
 take the second vote up to late May.

 Otherwise, there are already discussions within the administration and Congress,
 about sanctions, which include invoking the so-called Santiago Declaration
 adopted by the Organization of American States in 1991.

 The declaration calls for the hemisphere's foreign ministers to convene and
 determine if there has been a disruption of the democratic process in a member
 country and, if so, take the ``appropriate measures.'' Such measures could
 include an embargo.

 Ironically, the provision was first invoked when the military ousted then Haitian
 President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from office. Preval was his prime minister. That
 episode culminated in the 1994 U.S.-led invasion that restored Aristide to the
 presidency.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald