Rene Preval, a low-key technocrat who led Haiti as president during the devastating January 2010 earthquake and a messy and prolonged recovery, died March 3 in Port-au-Prince. He was 74.

His death was announced in a statement by Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. The cause of death was not released, but Mr. Preval had been treated for prostate cancer in 2001.

Mr. Preval was the only democratically elected president to win and complete two terms in a country notorious for political upheaval. He was elected by a landslide in 1995 as the chosen successor of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and turned power back over to Aristide when he left office five years later after a term marked by political infighting.

His second term, which started in 2006, was marred by the disastrous earthquake of Jan. 12, 2010, which reportedly killed more than 310,000 people and displaced more than 1 million. Many Haitians accused Mr. Preval of responding poorly to the tragedy.

There was widespread public anger toward Mr. Preval, who made few public appearances after the disaster and was blamed for much of the chaos engulfing the capital.

Haitian President Rene Preval, center, with first lady Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, in Port-au-Prince in 2010. (Brennan Linsley/Associated Press)

His chosen successor, Jude Celestin, lost in the first round of the 2010 presidential election, which was won later by popular musician Michel Martelly. On May 14, 2011, Mr. Preval handed over power to Martelly, marking the first transfer of power from a Haitian president to a member of the opposition.

Rene Garcia Preval was born Jan. 17, 1943, in the town of Marmelade in rural northern Haiti. His father was an agronomist who served under President Paul Magloire and fled the country during the early years of the dictatorship of François “Papa Doc” Duvalier.

Mr. Preval received an agronomy degree from Gembloux Agricultural University in Belgium and later studied geothermal sciences at the University of Pisa in Italy. In 1970, he moved to New York, where he worked as a waiter and a messenger. Five years later, he returned to Haiti and worked at the National Institute for Mineral Resources, according to an official biography.

In 1988, two years after a popular uprising ousted Duvalier’s son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, Mr. Preval opened a bakery in Port-au-Prince. He supplied bread to an orphanage run by Aristide, a Catholic priest who led a movement to oust the younger Duvalier and later became the country’s first democratically elected president.

Mr. Preval became a leading figure in Aristide’s Lavalas political movement, which enjoyed a huge following among the poor and was feared by the elite that had long dominated the country’s economy and government.

Aristide was elected president in 1990 and appointed Mr. Preval to be his prime minister. A military coup ousted Aristide seven months into his term, and the two leaders went into exile.

A U.S.-led invasion restored Aristide to power in 1994 and he completed the remaining year of his presidential term. With Aristide’s backing, Mr. Preval won 88 percent of the vote in 1995, though only a quarter of eligible voters cast ballots.

Mr. Preval’s first term was marked by political infighting, with Aristide seen as the power behind the throne. When Mr. Preval completed his term in 2001 and transferred power to Aristide, he became Haiti’s first democratically elected president to leave office after a full term.

Aristide’s second term ended when he was forced to flee the country following a violent rebellion in 2004. An interim government backed by the United States then took power.

Mr. Preval won a second term in 2006 in an election that nearly headed to a runoff. As his supporters demonstrated in the streets, the electoral council recounted ballots and found him to have an outright majority.

Haiti enjoyed a rare political stability, with a growing economy, but Mr. Preval’s second term was marked by a dramatic spike in violence and in deprivation caused by tropical storms, culminating in the 2010 earthquake.

After 2011, Mr. Preval lived at his estate near Port-au-Prince and in the Miami area, where many Haitian expatriates live.

Survivors include his third wife, Elisabeth “Babette” Delatour, and two daughters.

— Associated Press