In Haiti, Rene Preval has been declared the country’s new president — winning last week’s election, the first since the ouster of Jean Bertrand Aristide two years ago. Preval is a former ally of Aristide and received much of his support from Aristide supporters including the prominent priest Gerard Jean-Juste. Like Aristide, Preval is seen as a champion of the poor. He has pledged to create jobs, improve education and battle social inequalities in Haiti. Preval’s victory was announced early this morning after an agreement was reached between the interim government and electoral council. It had looked like Haiti was headed for a political crisis. With nearly all of the votes counted, Preval had fallen just shy of the 50 percent margin needed to avoid a runoff. However Preval had called for an investigation into possible election fraud after it was discovered that 85,000 blank ballots were cast. Up to thousands of burnt ballots were also discovered in a state garbage dump. Under the agreement some of the blank ballots were subtracted from the total number of votes counted, giving Preval a majority.