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Haiti declared Rene Preval, a one-time ally of ousted leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the Haitian 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 middle 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.

'Hope, respect, progress'

"For us, Preval means hope, respect and progress," said Jonas Lundi, 28, as he joined a crowd in the Canape Vert district. "Now we have a president elected by the people. Without violence and with tolerance, we are going to work together to move this country forward."

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.

Many Haitians were suspicious of the large number of blank votes, saying they could not imagine people trekking miles to polling stations simply to leave their ballots unmarked.

The UN mission sent to maintain the peace in Haiti has also acknowledged that partisan election workers could have stuffed ballot boxes with blank ballots.

The agreement over the blank votes lifted Preval's share to 50.9 percent.

Industrialist Charles Baker, considered the main candidate of the wealthy elite and who had been running a distant third to Preval with 7.9 percent of the vote, said he was caught off guard by the deal.

"We thought we were in a democratic process and everybody would observe the rules," Baker said, adding that the distribution of the blank votes violated the electoral law.

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."

(China Daily February 17, 2006)