HAVANA, Feb. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- Rene Preval was declared Haitian president on Thursday after authorities changed the way blank ballots are counted, according to reports reaching here from Port-Au-Prince, the Haitian capital.

    Preval, 61, received 51.15 percent of the votes, based on 96 percent of the voting stations counted, after a last-minute decision of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) to throw out 85,000 "blank" votes, said Max Mathurin, the CEP head, on Haitian radio in the middle of the night.

    Initial results gave Preval 48.76 percent of the vote in the Feb.7 election, short of a majority.

    Preval, who was strongly supported by the Caribbean country's poor masses, had condemned "massive fraud or gross errors" in the results.

    Thousands of supporters took to streets to demand Preval be the winner and the blank votes came under enormous suspicion. One person was killed in the turmoil.

    Preval encouraged his supporters on Tuesday to continue their protest against the partial results, but urged them to do so peacefully.

    Preval was president from 1996 to 2001 and served as prime minister in 1991 in the government led by ousted leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Enditem