Haiti declared Rene Preval, a one-time ally of ousted leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the country's next president on Thursday after reaching a deal over vote fraud claims and averting a possible explosion of violence.
Preval, opposed by the same wealthy elite who helped drive Aristide from power two years ago but passionately supported by the Caribbean country's poor, had said that "massive fraud" in the February 7 election had deprived him of a first-round victory in Haiti, one of the world's poorest countries.
"We have won. Now we are going to fight for parliament," Preval told the Haitian Press Agency.
Jubilant supporters poured into the streets of Port-au-Prince, dancing and chanting "victory, victory," after the embattled Provisional Electoral Council issued a statement on Haitian radio in the middle of the night.
"Rene Preval has been declared the winner with 51 percent," council President Max Mathurin said in the statement, setting the country of 8.5 million off on the next chapter in its turbulent political history, which has been marked by instability, dictatorships and bloodshed.
Last week's election was the first since populist Aristide fled into exile in 2004, facing an armed revolt and international pressure to quit. Preval's supporters warned they would not allow him to suffer the same fate as Aristide, who was twice elected and twice ousted, first by a military coup and then by the revolt.
Preval, 63, is the only president in Haiti's 202-year history to win a democratic election, serve a full term and peacefully hand power to a successor.
Brazil, which heads a peacekeeping force of 9,000 UN troops and police, brokered the deal to distribute 85,000 "blank" votes, which showed no choice for president out of the 33 candidates, proportionately among the contenders.
The blanks, amounting to 4.7 percent of the total, had been included in accordance with the law and reduced the final percentage allocated to each candidate.
With 90 percent of the ballots counted, Preval had been at 48.7 percent - below the simple majority he needed to avoid a March 19 runoff and outraging his supporters.
Preval will take office on March 29, replacing an interim government under Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, which was appointed after Aristide fled. "We have elected Preval for five years," said Jean-Marie Theodore, 25, a student. "We won't accept that he misses one minute of his five-year mandate."
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