René Préval
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| René Garcia Préval | |
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 14 May 2006 |
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| Prime Minister | Gérard Latortue Jacques-Édouard Alexis |
| Preceded by | Boniface Alexandre |
| In office 7 February 1996 – 7 February 2001 |
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| Prime Minister | Claudette Werleigh Rosny Smarth Jacques-Édouard Alexis |
| Preceded by | Jean-Bertrand Aristide |
| Succeeded by | Jean-Bertrand Aristide |
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| In office 13 February 1991 – 11 October 1991 |
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| President | Jean-Bertrand Aristide |
| Preceded by | Martial Célestin |
| Succeeded by | Jean-Jacques Honorat |
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| Born | 17 January 1943 Port-au-Prince, Haiti |
| Political party | FE |
| Alma mater | College of Gembloux University of Louvain University of Pisa |
René Garcia Préval (IPA: /ʀəne pʀeval/) (born January 17, 1943) is a Haitian politician and agronomist who has been the President of the Republic of Haiti since May 2006. He previously served as President from February 7, 1996 to February 7, 2001 and as Prime Minister from February 1991 to October 11, 1991.
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[edit] Early life and career
Préval was born in Port-au-Prince and was raised in his father's hometown of Marmelade, a village town in the Artibonite Department. He 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 Haiti with his family in 1963.
Préval's father, an agronomist too, had risen to the position of Minister of Agriculture i the government of Général Paul Magloire, the predecessor of Duvalier. Leaving Haiti 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 Haiti 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.
[edit] 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 Haiti 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 instituted 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.[3]
[edit] Second presidency
Préval ran again as the Lespwa candidate in the Haitian 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 Haiti. 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.
He was sworn in on May 14, following Haiti's legislative run-off vote in April;[4][5] he could not be sworn in until a sitting Parliament was in place. When he was sworn in, Préval emphasized the importance of unity, saying that division was Haiti's "main problem" and that Haitians had to "work together". On May 17, he nominated Jacques-Édouard Alexis, who had served as Prime Minister during Préval's first term, as Prime Minister again.[5] After taking office, Préval immediately signed an oil deal with Venezuela and traveled to the United States, Cuba, and France.
Préval drew much of his support from Haiti's poorest people; he was especially widely supported in the poorest neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince. However, many of the poor demanded that the former President Aristide be allowed to return and that civil enterprise workers fired by the Latortue government be reinstated. This caused increasing tension in the poor slums of Port-au-Prince.[6] Preval promised to build a massive road system which would boost trade and transportation around the country.
[edit] 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), Martín Torrijos of Panama, 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. Preval then visited the United States, where he was congratulated by U.S. President Bush for his reelection. Preval had claimed that with the exception of his nearby visit to the Dominican Republic, he wanted the United States to be his first diplomatic visit in office, putting it ahead of his eventual diplomatic visits to Venezuela, Cuba and France. The US considered Preval's meeting with Bush a good sign of excellent US-Haitian relations under his administration.
[edit] April 2008 riots
In early April 2008, riots broke out over the high cost of food; since 2007, prices for a number of essential foods, including rice, had risen by about 50%. [7] As the riots continued, rioters attacked the presidential palace on April 8 but were driven away by UN soldiers.[8] On April 9, Préval called for calm; he said that high food prices were a problem around the world, but that the problem would not be solved by destroying stores, and he said that he had "ordered Haitian police and UN soldiers to put an end to the looting". Despite demands for all taxes on food imports to be lifted, Préval said that he could not do so because the money was greatly needed;[9] he pledged to increase food production in Haiti so that the country would not be so dependent on imports, but this fell short of what many protesters demanded.[10] On April 12, the Senate voted to remove Prime Minister Alexis from office, and Préval announced that the price of a bag of rice weighing 23kg would be reduced from $51 to $43. According to Préval, the rice would be subsidized with international aid, and the private sector was willing to reduce the price by three dollars. He also said that he was going to seek Venezuelan assistance in improving the economic situation.[11]
[edit] References
- ^ [1][dead link]
- ^ Embassy of the Republic of Haiti, Washington D.C
- ^ Peter Greste. Haiti goes to the polls. BBC. Retrieved on August 13, 2006.
- ^ Haitian president-elect takes power. Jamaica Observer / Associated Press. Retrieved on August 13, 2006.
- ^ a b Angus Reid page on Haiti.
- ^ Thompson, Ginger. Candidate of Haiti's Poor Leads in Early Tally With 61% of Vote. The New York Times, February 10, 2006.
- ^ "Haitians riot over price rise", Al Jazeera, April 6, 2008.
- ^ "Haitians storm president's palace", Al Jazeera, April 9, 2008.
- ^ "Haitian president calls for calm", Al Jazeera, April 9, 2008.
- ^ "Haiti senators call on PM to quit", Al Jazeera, April 10, 2008.
- ^ "Haiti senators vote to remove PM", Al Jazeera, April 12, 2008.
[edit] 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 Haitians 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 February 2006 "No Match for Rene Preval in Haiti"
- Profile Rene Preval"
- Preval supporters protest Haiti election results
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Martial Célestin |
Prime Minister of Haiti 1991 |
Succeeded by Jean-Jacques Honorat |
| Preceded by Jean-Bertrand Aristide |
President of Haiti 1996– 2001 |
Succeeded by Jean-Bertrand Aristide |
| Preceded by Boniface Alexandre |
President of Haiti 2006 – present |
Incumbent |
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