Michel Martelly took the oath of office yesterday as Haiti’s new president, assuming the leadership of an impoverished country still in ruins from one of the most destructive earthquakes of modern times.

A power outage plunged the ceremony into darkness moments before the bald, one-time carnival singer was sworn in inside a building specially constructed as the temporary home of the country’s parliament.

“I swear before God and the nation to faithfully obey the constitution and the laws of the republic,” said Martelly, lit up by the flash of news cameras.

Outgoing president Rene Preval then removed the blue and red presidential sash, which was passed to Martelly by the president of the National Assembly in the first democratic transfer of power from one president to a political opponent in the country’s turbulent history.

About 500 foreign dignitaries and Haitian members of parliament witnessed the handover in sweltering heat.

After the swearing in, Martelly and his wife Sofia drove to the ruins of the presidential palace in the centre of Port-au-Prince where some 2,500 people gathered for a solemn inaugural ceremony amid hymns and religious invocations.

Thousands of cheering supporters massed outside the palace ground’s wrought iron fence.

Martelly, 50, a political novice who gained fame as a raucous performer known as ‘Sweet Micky’, faces a mammoth task of rebuilding Haiti, which was devastated by a powerful earthquake in January 2010 that killed more than 225,000 people and levelled much of the capital.