Hip-hop star Wyclef Jean met privately Thursday with Haitian President Rene Preval to address questions about whether he would qualify to run for president of his earthquake-battered homeland. Associates of the 40-year-old music mogul, best known as the frontman for The Fugees, said that he would learn Friday if he could run in the Caribbean nation's first election since the devastating January 12 earthquake. Thirty-four people are seeking to run for president on November 28 but the candidacies of nine of them, including Jean, are being challenged before electoral authorities. 'Clef saw President Preval today and awaits answers tomorrow,' Marian Salzman, a spokesman for the Grammy-winning performer, told selfnews. Jean released a picture on micro-blogging site Twitter in which he and Preval smiled and held hands together. Jean did not explain what the two discussed but said 'we had a great meeting.' 'I am inspired by President Obama. Communication is key,' Jean tweeted, saying that he voted in the last election for Preval who is constitutionally barred from seeking another term. Haiti's electoral council is expected to publish the list of candidates on Friday. In a late Thursday interview broadcast on CNN, Jean said that on Friday 'they're going to make the final decision. So, with all of the youth in Haiti, we're anticipating that it's looking good for us.' Jean also said that he has had residences in Haiti for more than five years, though it was unclear if he met the requirement of having lived in the country for five years. Jean also said that Preval promised to provide more security after learning that the star had received 'six or seven' death threats -- but that it was not necessary. 'I'm actually comfortable where I'm at right now. I'm in my hometown, and I'm comfortable,' Jean told CNN. Jean has promised to use his celebrity status to seek a brighter future for long impoverished Haiti, whose already serious problems were multiplied by the earthquake which killed at least 250,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless. Jean later issued a statement saying that 'regardless of what's going on with my candidacy,' it was 'my duty to keep reminding the world that on January 12, my homeland of Haiti suffered its worst natural disaster in its 200-year history. 'This is not just a Haitian crisis; this is an international crisis,' he emphasized. He said that he had a plan 'to make Haiti once again the 'pearl of the Antilles'' by asking 'all the Haitians living abroad to invest 10 dollars each, and for this investment each person will get a share in a project, whether it be roads, schools, hospitals, airports, stores, even hotels or movie theaters. These are all things our country needs to flourish.' Meanwhile, UN peacekeepers kept a close eye Thursday on some 300 people who marched under heavy rain to the Haitian electoral council office in support of Jean's candidacy. 'We are here to defend a just cause -- Wyclef Jean is a Haitian native, he is the candidate the people, and we want him as our president. He should be in the electoral race,' said one young demonstrator. Jean faces challenges on whether he meets residency requirements after having lived in the United States for much of his life, along with questions about payment of past taxes. Actor Sean Penn, who runs a 55,000-person tent camp for the homeless in Haiti, and others have accused Jean of misusing hundreds of thousands of dollars he raised after the earthquake for a charity he ran. 'He has been virtually silent for those of us in Haiti; he has been a non- presence,' Penn told CNN in an interview earlier this month. In a report Tuesday, The New York Times spotlighted a history of poor financial management at Jean's Yele Haiti charity, including a 250,000-dollar payment it made to a television station that the singer and a cousin had recently acquired. In a statement, Jean acknowledged 'missteps' at the charity before the earthquake but called claims that 250,000 dollars were misappropriated an 'outright falsity' circulated by disgruntled former employees. 'Unhappy former employees, old rumors and long negated claims are simply distractions at this crucial juncture, when my advisers and I need total focus on the Haitian situation,' he said. 