Port-au-Prince, Haiti ? 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 dayslong, 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.

Supporters of elected President Rene Preval lift a ballot box with his campaign poster attached while celebrating at the National Palace in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2006. Haitians began celebrating in the street Thursday as word quickly spread that Rene Preval, a former president who is hugely popular among the poor, was declared the winner of the presidential election overnight.

Preval has tried to dampen expectations in his few public statements, saying his government would not be able to immediately fix Haiti’s problems.

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.

Preval has been vague on whether he would welcome back Aristide, who is in exile in South Africa.