Rene Preval, Haitian president democratically spent longest time in office

Exposure from Young Age

Born on January 14th 1943 to an agronomist, he went on to study business and biology. His father had served as the Minister of Agriculture and Rene Preval has enough exposure to the ways of the government from a young age.

Rene Preval worked as a waiter, in the National Institute of Mineral Resources and later opened a bakery in Port-au-Prince as a partnership firm. Even as he worked, his involvement into active politics and social work continued unabated. Free bread was provided to an orphanage and he slowly established his good work amidst the people.

President and Prime Minister

Rene Preval functioned as the President and Prime Minister of Haiti for a short period of time - February to October of 1991. He won the first term with 88% vote and was the only president who stepped down after a natural expiry of term.

He brought many progressive economic reforms that brought down the unemployment level to a new low, but that was still insufficient. He initiated the move to privatize some of the government companies. His agrarian reforms were known to be aggressive.

Strong Political Rivalry

As a president, Rene Preval gave a lot of importance to fair trials and investigations and respected human rights. However the first term was fraught with political rivalry.

Rene Preval came back as the 55th President after Haiti had been through two years of international peace keeping. This time he did not come back with the same majority as the previous election. It was after a protest that he was declared the President.

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