Several days of popular demonstrations in favour of Préval followed in Port-au-Prince and other cities in Haiti. Préval claimed that there had been fraud among the vote counts, and demanded that he be declared the winner outright of the first round. Protesters paralyzed the capital with burning barricades and stormed a luxury hotel — Hotel Montana, located in the affluent suburb of Pétion-Ville — to demand results from Haiti's nearly week-old election as the then ex-President Préval fell further below the 50% needed to win the presidency. On February 16, 2006, Préval was declared the winner of the presidential election by the Provisional Electoral Council with 51.15% of the vote, after the exclusion of "blank" ballots from the count.