Singer and political outsider Michel Martelly has won Haiti's presidential election, beating former first lady Mirlande Manigat.
Popular singer and carnival entertainer Michel Martelly has been elected president of Haiti with 67.57% of the vote according to preliminary results.
Martelly triumphed in the 20 March run-off over former first lady Mirlande Manigat, who finished with 31.74% of votes cast.
Definitive results of the presidential and legislative elections are due to be announced on 16 April, after any legal complaints have been resolved.
'Sweet Micky' Martelly, a shaven-headed 50-year-old with no previous government experience, had preached a forceful message of change, pledging to break with decades of past corruption and misrule and to bring a better life to Haitians struggling to recover from a devastating 2010 earthquake.
His campaign tweeted the reports of his win. There was no immediate reaction from the Manigat camp.
As president, Martelly will face the huge challenge of trying to rebuild a small Caribbean country that was prostrated in poverty long before an earthquake killed more than 300,000 people and bludgeoned its fragile economy last year. Hundreds of thousands of destitute earthquake victims are still living in squalid tent and tarpaulin camps.
Anxious anticipation tinged with fears of violence had gripped the country since the preliminary results announcement was delayed from last week because of reported high levels of fraud.
Blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers were out patrolling the capital Port-au-Prince and other potential flashpoints. Some stores boarded up windows in anticipation of trouble.
The elections are choosing a successor to outgoing President Rene Preval and also new members of the parliament.
Analysts say the new president will have to deal with the intense pressure of the expectations of millions of Haitians who want jobs and a better life, among them hundreds of thousands of homeless quake survivors living in tent camps
Although both candidates, heeding earnest appeals from the international community, have restrained their supporters since the 20 March vote, many ordinary Haitians were wary that violence could follow the preliminary results announcement.
Nevertheless, the run-off last month passed off generally peacefully.
But in a country where calm streets can become transformed in seconds into battlegrounds of protesters and flaming tires, rumors have been swirling about threats to 'burn the nation' and about machetes selling out at stores.
The international community has worked to keep the Haitian elections on track through its U.N. peacekeeping mission and electoral observers and experts from the OAS and Caricom.
