Haiti pays last respects to Rene Preval, champion of rural poor

Former Haitian President Rene Preval was to be buried Saturday at a state funeral in Port-au-Prince, a final tribute to the late champion of the rural poor. Preval, who served two terms as the country's president, died on March 3 at age 74. His sister told local media that he had suffered a heart attack. In stands draped in Haitian flags, family and close colleagues of the former leader were gathered. Sitting in full sunlight, guests who had arrived early in the morning were given straw hats typical to rural areas beloved by the former president.
With a reputation as an honest and efficient administrator, Preval served as president of Haiti - the poorest country in the Western hemisphere with a long history of political violence - in 1996-2001 and again from 2006-2011.
He remains the only leader in Haiti's history to have completed his two terms - the constitutional limit - without suffering a coup d'etat or being forced into exile.
Both national and international politicians have praised this stability in power since the announcement of his death.
Jocelerme Privert, who held office as interim president from 2016 to 2017 during the country's electoral crisis, was an adviser to Preval's cabinet and stressed the importance of maintaining the consensus promoted by the leader known to the population as "Ti Rene."
"For him, no price was too high when it came to finding a consensus," Privert told AFP. "I say that Rene is the father of this politically stable and socially calmed down Haiti."
A moderate leftist, Preval first served as prime minister to ex-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide from February 1991 until the government was toppled in September that year.
Both politicians enjoyed huge support among millions of impoverished Haitians, many of them living in the capital's violent slums.
But in the early 2000's Preval distanced himself from Aristide.
While the current President Jovenel Moise and a number of Haiti's political leaders paid respects Friday to Preval on the eve of his state funeral, Aristide did not attend - a notable absence.
After six days of national mourning, Preval's funeral was to be held Saturday in the heart of the Haitian capital on the Champ de Mars, Port-au-Prince's main park.
Following the religious ceremony, Moise was to address the crowd. Preval's youngest daughter, Patricia, was also set to speak.
His body will be buried in the afternoon in Marmelade, the village where his father was born and where he spent his childhood, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of the capital.
Born on January 17, 1943 to a former minister, Preval went into exile with his family in 1963. He waited tables in restaurants in the United States in the 1970s and returned a decade later to Haiti to open a bakery.
After the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship in 1986, Preval was active in working-class organizations and met Aristide, who after becoming president named Preval prime minister in 1991. Preval led as president of Haiti from 1996 to 2001.
He served a second term from 2006-2011. During his second term Preval's popularity suffered after a massive earthquake struck in 2010, killing more than 220,000 people. Critics said he had shown a lack of leadership after the disaster. He rarely ventured into the public eye in recent years but nevertheless remained a key political figure. Divorced and remarried, Preval had two daughters and one son.