COMEDY ON THE HAITIAN POLITICAL STAGE
By La Rédaction · Port-au-Prince
· 4 min read · Updated 24 April 2026
Translated from French — AI-assisted and reviewed by the editorial team. The French version is authoritative. Read the original · About our translation policy
The Haitian crisis has long ceased to be a mere governance crisis. It has become a crisis of meaning, responsibility, and political decency. Recent events offer a striking, almost caricatural illustration: while the State is in agony and society is plunged into generalized insecurity, a part of the political class is striving to transform the transition into a spectacle, and power into an object of derision.
After a succession of "national dialogues," "inter-Haitian forums," and vaguely defined consultations, an appeal has now emerged from a luxury hotel to designate a president and a Prime Minister. This scene, which could have been political satire, is nonetheless very real. It reflects a profoundly misguided conception of the exercise of power and an alarming incomprehension of the gravity of the historical moment.
The confusion between legitimacy and staging
In any functional democracy, access to the highest offices of the State relies on popular legitimacy, programmatic clarity, and institutional responsibility. In Haiti, these principles seem to have been replaced by a logic of informal co-optation, where power is negotiated in restricted circles, far from suffrage, far from the people, far from any demand for accountability.
The presidency and the prime ministership are now envisioned as positions to be filled, almost administratively, regardless of the structural failure of the State. There is talk of profiles, consensus, leadership, but never of institutional refoundation, national security, or the reconstruction of public authority. Power is coveted even before its purpose is defined.
The pathology of power
This sequence reveals a well-known constant in Haitian political life: a pathological obsession with power, detached from any strategic vision. Governing is no longer perceived as a service rendered to the community, but as a social status, an instrument of recognition, and a means of political survival.
This disease of power manifests as a chronic inability to think of the country beyond oneself. National priorities: security, elections, justice, education, and economy are relegated to the background, in favor of a permanent struggle for positioning, visibility, and access to state privileges. Power becomes an end, never a means.
An out-of-touch elite facing a country in distress
This drift is all the more shocking as it occurs in a context of extreme social suffering. While political discussions take place in protected spaces, a large part of the territory escapes state control, thousands of families live under the permanent threat of armed violence, and exodus has become a collective horizon.
There are now two Haitis:
that of political salons, solemn declarations, and agreements without real impact;
and that of the people, abandoned to insecurity, precarity, and institutional neglect.
This fracture makes political staging not only ineffective but morally indefensible.
Governing the illusion of a State
The paradox reaches its peak when one observes the relentless determination to govern a State stripped of its essential functions. There is a dispute over the control of weakened, sometimes non-existent, institutions, as if the mere act of holding a title were enough to recreate public authority.
This logic perpetuates a dangerous illusion: that Haiti's problem is primarily a problem of people, and not of structures, practices, and political culture. However, without a radical break with the methods that led to the current collapse, any transition, whatever its form, will remain a hollow exercise.
A comedy with destructive effects
It would be tempting to treat these episodes with irony, so close are they to the absurd. But the consequences are too serious to merely laugh. Every semblance of dialogue, every improvised transition, every opaque arrangement contributes to further eroding popular trust and permanently delegitimizing political action.
By constantly transforming governance into a comedy, a part of the political class forgets a fundamental truth: a people who no longer believe in their leaders eventually turn away from the State itself. And when politics loses all credibility, the void it leaves is rarely filled by democratic forces.
The current situation demands not recycled personal ambitions, but a profound refoundation of Haitian political thought. Without this, the comedy will continue until there is no stage left, no audience, and no country left to govern. Pierre Josué Agénor Cadet
After a succession of "national dialogues," "inter-Haitian forums," and vaguely defined consultations, an appeal has now emerged from a luxury hotel to designate a president and a Prime Minister. This scene, which could have been political satire, is nonetheless very real. It reflects a profoundly misguided conception of the exercise of power and an alarming incomprehension of the gravity of the historical moment.
The confusion between legitimacy and staging
In any functional democracy, access to the highest offices of the State relies on popular legitimacy, programmatic clarity, and institutional responsibility. In Haiti, these principles seem to have been replaced by a logic of informal co-optation, where power is negotiated in restricted circles, far from suffrage, far from the people, far from any demand for accountability.
The presidency and the prime ministership are now envisioned as positions to be filled, almost administratively, regardless of the structural failure of the State. There is talk of profiles, consensus, leadership, but never of institutional refoundation, national security, or the reconstruction of public authority. Power is coveted even before its purpose is defined.
The pathology of power
This sequence reveals a well-known constant in Haitian political life: a pathological obsession with power, detached from any strategic vision. Governing is no longer perceived as a service rendered to the community, but as a social status, an instrument of recognition, and a means of political survival.
This disease of power manifests as a chronic inability to think of the country beyond oneself. National priorities: security, elections, justice, education, and economy are relegated to the background, in favor of a permanent struggle for positioning, visibility, and access to state privileges. Power becomes an end, never a means.
An out-of-touch elite facing a country in distress
This drift is all the more shocking as it occurs in a context of extreme social suffering. While political discussions take place in protected spaces, a large part of the territory escapes state control, thousands of families live under the permanent threat of armed violence, and exodus has become a collective horizon.
There are now two Haitis:
that of political salons, solemn declarations, and agreements without real impact;
and that of the people, abandoned to insecurity, precarity, and institutional neglect.
This fracture makes political staging not only ineffective but morally indefensible.
Governing the illusion of a State
The paradox reaches its peak when one observes the relentless determination to govern a State stripped of its essential functions. There is a dispute over the control of weakened, sometimes non-existent, institutions, as if the mere act of holding a title were enough to recreate public authority.
This logic perpetuates a dangerous illusion: that Haiti's problem is primarily a problem of people, and not of structures, practices, and political culture. However, without a radical break with the methods that led to the current collapse, any transition, whatever its form, will remain a hollow exercise.
A comedy with destructive effects
It would be tempting to treat these episodes with irony, so close are they to the absurd. But the consequences are too serious to merely laugh. Every semblance of dialogue, every improvised transition, every opaque arrangement contributes to further eroding popular trust and permanently delegitimizing political action.
By constantly transforming governance into a comedy, a part of the political class forgets a fundamental truth: a people who no longer believe in their leaders eventually turn away from the State itself. And when politics loses all credibility, the void it leaves is rarely filled by democratic forces.
The current situation demands not recycled personal ambitions, but a profound refoundation of Haitian political thought. Without this, the comedy will continue until there is no stage left, no audience, and no country left to govern. Pierre Josué Agénor Cadet
