The rise of Rene Preval as Haiti's first elected president since a bloody uprising in 2004 ousted Jean-Bertrand Aristide marks a stunning reemergence for a man that first came to power in 1996 when he replaced Aristide, his longtime ally and mentor, as the island nation's leader.

Political infighting between Preval's administration and the country's parliament marred his time in office and led to a relatively peaceful though uneventful tenure.

Between 1996 and 2001, before he handed power back to Aristide, worked to return land taken over by wealthy landowners to the country's poor and tapped his agronomy education in Belgium to establish agricultural programs in Haiti's rural areas.

"While in office, Preval was not as bad a head of state as others Haiti has had," Jean-Germaine Gros, a Haiti analyst at the University of Missouri, told Reuters. "He does have a record of some accomplishment."

"He built a big marketplace downtown," Haitian street sweeper Yves Valea told CNN. "He fixed it so that the vendors could get out of the mud."

In 1996, Preval visited the United States, where he met with then-President Bill Clinton to discuss the economic plight of his country.

"Our priority right now is that democracy must be strengthened by economic progress," Preval told the NewsHour in a March 1996 interview following his meeting with Clinton. "The first thing that we are trying to reach is the increase of the national production, especially agricultural production."

But few of his loftier goals outlined when he came to power were realized during his tenure.

Yet when he left office in 2001, Preval became the first president in Haiti's 202-year history to win a democratic election, complete his term in office and hand power to a successor, Reuters reported.

"When in office, I think those in the United States government who dealt with him found him personally to be honest and accessible if rather undynamic," James Dobbins, an expert on Haitian politics, told the NewsHour.

During the 2006 election, poor Haitians remembered Preval's loyalty during his first term and it was the country's working classes that helped nudge him to victory, giving him a 51 percent lead over his rivals, the country's electoral commission reported.

The 63-year-old leader of the country's L'Espwa, or Hope, Party now faces a difficult road in Haiti. He faces opposition from the country's wealthy elite, a group who helped oust Aristide and who see Preval simply as a shadow of the exiled leader.

Preval also must regain control of Haiti's streets, where armed gangs have carried out kidnappings and taken control of a rampant drug and gun trafficking trade since Aristide's 2004 ouster.

In an interview with Reuters soon after the election, Preval said his priorities included decentralizing the government, strengthening the police and judiciary and achieving the "great dream" of primary education for all Haitians.

After his swearing in on May 14, 2006, Preval urged Haitians to maintain security so the country could create jobs, build roads and hospitals and move forward "without the presence of foreign troops," reported the Associated Press.

"Haitian people, the solution to our problems is in our hands," he said. "Please help me, help the country, help yourself."

-- Compiled from wire reports and other media sources