CNN Wire Staff

Port-Au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) — After months of uncer­tainty, Haiti’s pres­i­dent Wednes­day set Novem­ber 28 as the day that vot­ers in the earthquake-devastated nation will head to the polls to elect a successor.

Elec­tions sched­uled for Feb­ru­ary were post­poned after a mas­sive earth­quake struck on Jan­u­ary 12, leav­ing more than 200,000 dead and dis­plac­ing as many as 1.5 mil­lion peo­ple from their homes. Many gov­ern­ment build­ings were destroyed or dam­aged and thou­sands of records and doc­u­ments were lost forever.

Given the mag­ni­tude of the earth­quake and the slow start to recov­ery efforts, Haitians were unsure whether an elec­tion could take place this year.

Many had also expressed a lack of con­fi­dence in the gov­ern­ment and took to the streets to protest Pres­i­dent Renee Preval, who they said has been drag­ging his feet on announc­ing an elec­tion date.

But Preval on Wednes­day signed decrees man­dat­ing Haiti’s Pro­vi­sional Elec­toral Coun­cil to orga­nize pres­i­den­tial and leg­isla­tive elec­tions on Novem­ber 28. Haiti’s con­sti­tu­tion pro­hibits Preval from seek­ing another term.

“It’s a good thing and a big step,” said Serge Audate, chief of staff at the Pro­vi­sional Elec­toral Council.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the gov­ern­ment to ensure that the vote will be fair and trans­par­ent and said that it will “serve to rein­force Haiti’s demo­c­ra­tic insti­tu­tions as the coun­try strives to recover from the worst human­i­tar­ian cri­sis in its history.”

Preval has said in the past that polit­i­cal sta­bil­ity is fun­da­men­tal for the devel­op­ment of a country.

“I think that is what con­sti­tutes a guar­an­tee for investors, for the pop­u­la­tion — that there’s some guar­an­tees, that there’s some secu­rity about their future,” he said dur­ing a visit to Wash­ing­ton in March.

CNN’s Edvige Jean-Francois con­tributed to this report.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/06/30/haiti.election/?fbid=Y-71bcd4Kwi