lespwa - Haiti Observer Blog

He was first elected to the post of Haiti's President with a staggering 88% of the popular vote. René Préval again ran for president as the Lespwa candidate but, unlike his first election, this proved not to be a clear-cut victory. When early voting results were released on February 9, they indicated a 60% favorable voting for Préval. This number slipped to 48.7% as more ballots came in and a run-off became necessary.

There were celebrations soon after for the former president, but his comment on February 14, that fraud was at play in the vote counting and that he should be declared the winner of the first round, caused a series of protests to erupt. Port-au-Prince was crippled by torched barricades and protestors stormed the Hotel Montana, demanding the results of the election. Finally, on the 16th, after excluding blank ballots from the count, President Préval officially won his second term as the Haitian head of state with 51.15% of the votes.

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Rene Preval served for two terms as the president of Haiti in the period 1996 to 2001 and another one from 1006 to 2011. He is remembered for having helped the Haitians to remove President Jean Claude from power. He was by then the leader for the movement which helped in overthrowing Jean Claude. This helped him to get recognition allover Haiti in 1970s.

He is one of the leaders who rose into power with a lot of support from the poor people. He got a lot of support from Haitians due to his leadership role in the LESPWA party. Rene Preval studied in Belgium and graduated with a degree in Agronomy. He is one of the officials of Bertrand Aristide before he was overthrown in 1991. He replaced Aristide after he was overthrown in 1991. He was earlier the Prime Minister of Haiti under Aristide for sometime before the coup of 1991.

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