Rene prevailed

Pr?val, who died on Friday at the age of 74, had the distinction of being the only democratically-elected president to win and complete two terms in a country plagued by political upheaval and natural and human disasters.

When Pr?val completed his first term in 2001 and transferred power to Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Pr?val became Haiti’s first democratically elected president to leave office after completing a full term. Then, after his second term, Pr?val on May 14, 2011, handed over power to Michel Martelly, marking the first transfer of power from a Haitian president to a member of the opposition.

Pr?val was intimately aware of the challenges facing his country.

His childhood gave him insight into the dangers of tyranny. He was born on January 17, 1943, in the town of Marmelade in northern Haiti. His father, Claude, was an agronomist under former president Paul Magloire. Claude fled the country during the early years of the dictatorship of Fran?ois “Papa Doc” Duvalier.

Pr?val earned a degree in agronomy from Gembloux Agricultural University in Belgium. He then studied geothermal sciences at the University of Pisa in Italy. In 1970, he moved to New York. There, he worked as a waiter and a messenger.

In 1975, he returned to Haiti and worked at the National Institute for Mineral Resources.

In 1988, two years after a popular uprising ousted Duvalier’s son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, Pr?val opened a bakery in the capital Port-au-Prince. This bakery supplied bread to an orphanage run by Aristide, then a Roman Catholic priest, who led a movement to oust the younger Duvalier. Aristide later became the country’s first democratically elected president.

Pr?val became a leading figure in Aristide’s Lavalas political movement, which enjoyed a huge following among the poor. At the same time, the movement was reportedly feared and hated by a community of elites who have long dominated the country’s economy and government. When Aristide was elected president in 1990, he appointed Pr?val as his prime minister.

But this foray was short-lived.

A military coup ousted Aristide seven months into his term and the two leaders went into exile.

A US-led invasion restored Aristide to power in 1994 and he was allowed to complete his term in office. Running as Aristide’s successor, and with his endorsement, Pr?val won 88 per cent of the vote in 1995 though only a quarter of eligible voters cast ballots.

Pr?val’s first term was marked by political infighting. Aristide was seen as the power behind the throne. Still, Pr?val completed his term in 2001 and transferred power to Aristide, becoming Haiti’s first democratically elected president to leave office after a full term.

Fate would have it that Preval would serve a second term. He won an election in 2006 that nearly headed to a runoff. Amid protests, the electoral council recounted ballots and found he had an outright majority.

Pr?val’s second term was marked by a dramatic spike in crime, riots over soaring food prices and a series of tropical storms. But it was the January 12, 2010, earthquake that destroyed much of the capital, including the National Palace.

Pr?val has been both praised and criticised for his handling of this catastrophe which killed more than 310,000 people and displaced more than a million.

Still, Haiti enjoyed a rare political stability. The economy started improving, with growth reaching almost three per cent in 2009, the second fastest rate in the hemisphere.

Today, we commemorate this leader.