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'René Garcia Préval' (born January 17, 1943 in Marmelade) is a Haitian politician and agronomist who is currently the President of Haïti. He was born in Port-au-Prince but was raised in his father's hometown of Marmelade, a village town in the Artibonite Department. He previously served as president from February 7, 1996 to February 7, 2001 and Prime Minister from February 1991 to September 2, 1993.

Contents

Career

First presidency

Second presidency

Latin American Integration

Privatization and Neo-liberalism

References

External links

Career

Préval studied agronomy at the College of Gembloux and the University of Louvain in Belgium[1] and also studied geothermal sciences at the University of Pisa in Pisa, Italy[2]. He left Haïti with his family in 1963.
Préval's father, an agronomist too, had risen to the position of Minister of Agriculture in the government of Général Paul Magloire, the predecessor of Duvalier. Leaving Haïti because his political past presented him as a potential opponent, he found work with UN agencies in Africa.
After spending five years in Brooklyn, New York, occasionally working as a restaurant waiter, Préval returned to Haïti and obtained a position with the National Institute for Mineral Resources. Despite his strong political connections, Préval was very much involved in the agricultural workings of society. After a few years, he opened a bakery in Port-au-Prince with some business partners. While operating his company, he continued to be active in political circles and charity work. Providing bread to the orphanage of Salesian Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide, with whom he developed a close relationship.
After the election of Aristide as president in 1990, Préval served as his Prime Minister from February 13 to October 11, 1991, going into exile following the September 30 1991 military coup.

First presidency

In 1996, Préval was elected as president for a five-year term, with 88% of the popular vote. Upon his 1996 inauguration, Préval became the second democratically elected head of state in the country's two-hundred-year history. In 2001, he became the first President of Haïti ever to leave office as a result of the natural expiration of his term.
As president Préval instituted a number of economic reforms, most notably the privatization of various government companies. Some have suggested that these privatizations were a result of Préval bowing to the pressure exerted on him by external entities including the IMF. The unemployment rate (though still quite high) had fallen to its lowest level since the fall of Duvalier by the end of Préval's term. Préval also insituted an aggressive program of agrarian reform in Haiti's countryside. His rule, however, was also marked by fierce political clashes with a parliament dominated by opposition party members and an increasingly vocal and at-times violent presence in the streets of political partisans of his predecessor, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who often met Préval's political program with chaotic demonstrations.
As president, Préval was a strong supporter of investigations and trials related to human rights violations committed by military and police personnel.
Préval dissolved the parliament in 1999 and ruled by decree for the duration of the final year of his presidency. Haiti goes to the polls Peter Greste

Second presidency

Préval ran again as the Lespwa candidate in the Haïtian presidential election of 2006. The election took place after nearly two years of international peacekeeping, which some described as an unelected dictatorship. Partial election results, released on February 9, indicated that he had won with about sixty percent of the vote, but as further results were released, his share of the vote slipped to 48.7% – thus making a run-off necessary. Several days of popular demonstrations in favour of Préval followed in Port-au-Prince and other cities in Haïti. On February 14, Préval claimed that there had been fraud among the vote counts, and demanded that he be declared the winner outright of the first round. Protesters paralyzed the capital with burning barricades and stormed a luxury hotel to demand results from Haiti's nearly week-old election as ex-President Rene Preval fell further below the 50 per cent needed to win the presidency.
On February 16, 2006, Préval was declared the winner of the Presidential Election by the Provisional Electoral Council with 51.15 percent of the vote, after the exclusion of "blank" ballots from the count. Upon his taking office he immediately signed an oil deal with Venezuela and traveled to the United States, Cuba, and France.
Préval draws much of his support from Haïti's poorest people; he is especially widely supported in the poorest neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince. However, many of the poor demand that the former President Aristide be allowed to return and that civil enterprise workers fired by the Latortue government be reinstated. This has caused increasing tension in the poor slums of Port-au-Prince.^[1] Preval has promised to build a massive road system which would boost trade and transportation around the country.

Latin American Integration

Haiti under Preval has been cooperating diplomatically and fraternally with its fellow countries of Latin America. The slowly-stabilizing country has seemingly benefited in a rather solid economic partnership with Venezuela. This recently-forged friendship between Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and the Haitian president has resulted in various economic agreements. 4 power plants (a 40 megawatt, a 30 megawatt, and two 15 megawatts) are set to be constructed in Haiti. An oil refinery is also scheduled to be installed in the country, with a production capacity of 10,000 barrels of oil per day. Venezuela's assistance to Haiti is founded upon a historic act where the newly-independent Haiti welcomed and tended to Simón Bolívar and provided military power to aid Bolivar's cause in liberating much of South America. Haiti's Latin American alliance provides the country with much of its needed aid. Fidel as well as Raul Castro and other Cuban diplomats such as Vice President Esteban Lazo Hernandez have thanked Haiti for consistently voting in the United Nations General Assembly against the United States embargo against Cuba. Since Preval's induction, the economy has been on a sizeable increase. Preval's diplomatic relations with fellow Latin American nations have opened up many opportunities for Haiti, in terms of economics. Preval has met with many Latin American leaders such as Fidel Castro, Evo Morales of Bolivia (with an economic situation similar to Haiti's), Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, and Leonel Fernandez of the Dominican Republic. Haitian and Dominican relations have strengthened largely in part due to Preval's willingness to end volatile temperaments and the two presidents' determination of brotherly cooperation. Preval's first foreign visitation was actually in the neighboring country in which he was graciously welcomed by the Dominican government. In addition to diplomatic relations, the health sector (though still very low) is improving with the strong presence of Cuban medical personnel actively working in all regions of the country.

Privatization and Neo-liberalism

By the end of the summer 2007 it became clear that Preval was planning a massive privatization program that will lay off thousands of workers.
Préval was sworn in on May 14, following Haïti's legislative run-off vote in April.
Haitian president-elect takes power

References

1. Thompson, Ginger. Candidate of Haiti's Poor Leads in Early Tally With 61% of Vote. ''The New York Times'', February 10, 2006.

External links

★ Rene Preval Blog

★ Rene Preval 2005 Elections Archives

★ Rene Preval entry at Cooperative Research.org

★ United States Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook (2000)

★ Profile of H.E. Mr. Réné Garcia Preval

★ St. Petersburg times - Ex-leader still enigma as Haïtians cast ballots

★ Brief analysis of Préval's rise to Head of State 2006

★ Rene Preval Haiti May Get One Last Chance in Spite of Washington's Best Efforts Council on Hemispheric Affairs

★ Prensa Latina Feb. 2006 "No Match for Rene Preval in Haiti"

★ Profile Rene Preval"

★ Preval supporters protest Haiti election results