Rene Preval

Shoeless boys with angry eyes and empty stomachs no longer loiter outside the green iron gates of the National Palace. The odd jobs of oppression have disappeared. In the unfamiliar atmosphere of peace, there are no more orders to bash heads or crush dissent that once earned the ragtag enforcers a plate of rice and beans or a tube of glue to sniff. A year into his second tenure as president, Rene Preval has broken ranks with two centuries of despots and demagogues.

A spokesman for former Haitian President Rene Preval said Wednesday that unconfirmed early results showed him with a wide lead in the country's presidential race. The claim from Preval's team could not be verified, but some polling stations posted results that showed strong early support for him. Many ballots were still being carried in from remote polling places by plane, truck and mule, and final results might not be available until Friday.

With one presidential term behind him and his campaign for a return to power undertaken with reluctance, Rene Preval has made clear he has no illusions about the daunting challenges that lie ahead for the next leader of Haiti.

Gunfire erupted and killed a man Monday as angry supporters of presidential front-runner Rene Preval took to the streets to protest delays and rumored fraud in ballot counting from the Feb. 7 elections. Witnesses said the gunfire in the capital's Tabarre neighborhood came from U.N. forces -- a charge denied by the peacekeepers' spokesman. Another mob stormed the luxury Hotel Montana in search of election officials the protesters accused of trying to deny a majority victory to Preval.

Haiti's interim government agreed Tuesday to review vote counts from the Feb. 7 election, after presidential front-runner Rene Preval claimed that "massive fraud or gross errors" had deprived him of victory. The agreement came after Preval urged his supporters to continue protesting the vote count, but to do so peacefully.

Under pressure to resolve accusations of fraud, Haitian election officials said early today that they have agreed to set aside tens of thousands of suspect ballots and declare presidential front-runner Rene Preval the winner. The compromise drafted by the Provisional Electoral Council with Preval's campaign and Haiti's interim government was announced over Radio Tropic FM and was expected to end days of angry protests and accusations of fraud in tabulating results of the Feb. 7 election.

Conga lines of jubilant Haitians thronged the dusty, trash-filled streets of the capital Thursday to celebrate a negotiated conclusion to their troubled Feb. 7 presidential election that gave poor-man's idol Rene Preval a first-round victory. But the decision by Haitian electoral officials to remove 85,000 blank ballots from the equation, allowing Preval to clear the 50% hurdle and avoid a runoff, angered the candidates who trailed a distant second and third.

When word leaked out in the powder-keg streets of Port-au-Prince that former President Rene Preval's lead was shrinking, his supporters took to the hills. By the thousands, they stormed up to the hilltop Hotel Montana, where they believed the overseers of the Haitian presidential vote were holed up, clambering over the luxury compound's gates and overwhelming its meager defenses. But electoral council officials hadn't shown up at the Montana that Monday.

Robert Manuel doesn't say much, but his omnipresence at the side of President-elect Rene Preval speaks volumes about the next head of state's newfound independence. Manuel was national security chief in the first years of Preval's 1996-2001 presidency but was forced to resign after a crackdown on drug traffickers netted some loyalists of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who served as president before and after Preval.

Ousted President JeanBertrand Aristide has the constitutional right to return to Haiti whenever he chooses but may want to keep in mind that charges have been filed against him, President-elect Rene Preval said Wednesday. In his first major public statement since being declared the winner last week of a Feb.