With election settled, hope fills the streets

The new president tried to lower expectations.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Singing, dancing and waving branches ripped from roadside trees, jubilant Haitians poured into the streets Thursday after a vote marred by fraud charges and massive protests ended in victory for the favored presidential candidate of the impoverished majority.
"Now we have hope," said Dabual Jean, a 24-year-old who earns about $2 a day selling fruit on the street in the capital, Port-au-Prince. "The country is upside down. With Preval, hopefully we'll get on the right path.
Rene Preval, an agronomist and former president, made no public appearances Thursday, in keeping with his virtual silence as a roller-coaster vote count roiled the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
"We have won. We thank God and the population," Preval told the Haitian Press Agency in his only public statement. "We will now fight for Parliament."
He remained shuttered inside his sister's house in the capital hours after electoral and government officials announced his victory, which was cemented early Thursday after election officials divided ballots that were left blank among all candidates in proportion to the votes they'd received.
Preval has tried to dampen expectations in his few public statements, saying his government would not be able to immediately fix Haiti's problems, which range from massive unemployment to near-total rural deforestation.
Violence
Thousands of U.N. soldiers and police officers have been unable to quell rampant urban violence, including fatal attacks on peacekeepers and hundreds of kidnappings.
Many here still resent the overthrow of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Preval's former ally, and wonder whether Preval will be able to end the violence and overcome the suspicion and hatred dividing Haiti's tiny elite from its vast poor population.
Still, Preval's victory sent hopes soaring among the millions of Haitians struggling amid grinding poverty in violent slums and isolated rural villages.
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