Interim government and election officials announced early yesterday they had reached an agreement to declare Rene Preval the winner of Haiti's presidential election.
"We have reached a solution to the problem," said Max Mathurin, president of the Provisional Electoral Council. "We now feel huge satisfaction at having liberated the country from a truly difficult situation."
"We acknowledge the final decision of the electoral council and salute the election of Rene Preval as president of the republic of Haiti," Prime Minister Gerard Latortue said in a phone interview.
There was no reaction visible in the streets of the capital in the pre-dawn hours yesterday.
The Feb. 7 election had triggered massive street protests by backers of Preval, who said fraud was being carried out to deprive him of the 50 percent plus one vote needed for a first-round victory. Preval, an agronomist and former president, will replace Jean-Bertrand Aristide, his former mentor, who was ousted in a bloody rebellion two years ago.
With 90 percent of ballots counted, Preval had been just shy of the 50 percent margin needed for a first-round election win. But under the agreement, some of the blank votes -- representing 4 percent of the estimated 2.2 million ballots cast -- were subtracted from the total number of votes counted, giving Preval the majority, said Michel Brunache, chief of Cabinet for interim President Boniface Alexandre.
"Preval wins with 51.15 percent," Brunache said after the meeting ended. "On Feb. 7 the people made a choice. It is an historic day for the nation of Haiti."
A popularly elected government with a clear mandate is seen as crucial to avoiding a political and economic meltdown in the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation. Gangs have gone on kidnapping sprees and factories have closed for lack of security.
At least one Preval supporter died in largely peaceful street protests by thousands of Preval supporters. Preval claimed on Tuesday that "massive fraud or gross errors" had been committed and he had vowed to challenge the results if officials had insisted on holding a March runoff.
The UN mission in Haiti late on Wednesday said the discovery of voting bags, marked ballots and other election materials in a garbage dump was an "apparent grave breach of the electoral process."
Journalists saw thousands of ballots, some marked for Preval, in the garbage dump along with a vote tally sheet and four bags meant to carry returns. Discovery of the ballots was initially reported by Haitian TV on Tuesday night.
In a statement, the UN expressed "deep concern at the media reports of ballot papers being deposited and burnt on the northern outskirts of Port-au-Prince" and said it "urges the Haitian authorities to investigate fully and prosecute anyone found guilty of this apparent grave breach of the electoral process."
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