Ex-Haitian President Preval dies, first to peacefully hand over power
PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) - Former Haitian President Rene Preval, 74, the first leader in Haiti’s history to win a democratic election, serve a full term and peacefully hand power to a successor, died on Friday after falling unconscious at his home.
The cause of death for the two-time president was not made public. His sister, Marie-Claude Calvin, said an autopsy would determine the cause. She said “he sounded fine” the three times she spoke to him yesterday, but that medics at a nearby clinic were unable to save his life after he collapsed.
“It was too late, he died. All that happened very quickly,” Calvin said.
President Jovenel Moise described Preval as a “dignified son of Haiti,” in a statement on Twitter. The United States extended condolences, saying Preval had “shepherded his country through tragic times and good times.”
Preval was a central figure in Haitian politics from the early nineties through to his second presidency. His legacy will always be tied to the 2010 earthquake that destroyed much of the capital, Port-au-Prince, killing more than 200,000 people and bringing the presidential palace crumbling to the ground.
Haiti has been politically turbulent for much of its history since winning independence from France in 1804, punctuated by dictatorships, coups, invasions and natural disasters.
Preval, a soft-spoken agronomist, won support from Haiti’s poor majority when he first won the presidency in 1996, after a bout of instability that saw his ally, former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, toppled in a coup, then brought back to power with the help of U.S. troops.