Elections in Haiti: A Decree in Vain?

Without security, without authority, without trust, the country lacks the minimum conditions to go to the polls. By Pierre Josué Agénor Cadet Four years, three months, and twenty-five days after the heinous assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, more than eighteen months after the swearing-in of the Transitional Presidential Council (CPT), the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), established by the latter, has invited political parties and civil society organizations to collect the draft electoral decree from its office in Pétion-Ville. A gesture that, at first glance, might suggest a desire to move towards elections. But in reality, one question remains: can elections be organized in a country without security, without credible institutions, and without moral and legitimate authority? An Electoral Decree Without a Viable Political Context The Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), in a public statement, invites political actors and civil society to collect the draft electoral decree as a prelude to potential elections. Remarks must be submitted before November 10. But behind this administrative gesture lies a troubling reality: Haiti currently does not have the minimum conditions for a credible and inclusive electoral process. Security and Institutional Collapse For several years, the country has been plagued by endemic violence caused by the spiral of armed gangs. These gangs control large portions of the national territory, including the capital. Law enforcement, overwhelmed and divided, struggles to guarantee the free movement of individuals, let alone the security of an election. Some mobile courts operate slowly when they are not dysfunctional, public administrations are disorganized, and basic services (health, education, justice) are collapsing. In this context, talking about elections is less about democratic planning and more about political fiction. The CEP in Search of Legitimacy The electoral institution, supposed to embody republican neutrality, suffers from a deep credibility deficit. Its composition and mission are subject to persistent challenges (for some of its members, of course). The country's main political forces do not recognize its authority, and the disillusioned population no longer believes in institutional promises. How could a body without national legitimacy or political consensus organize elections worthy of the name? Elections Without Security: The Risk of a Charade Organizing elections in a fragmented country like ours would amount to institutionalizing anarchy. Ballot boxes would become easy targets for armed groups, voters would be taken hostage, and the election results would lose all democratic meaning. Democracy cannot be born of fear or coercion. It requires a stable security framework, recognized moral authority, and freedom of expression for citizens. All three of these conditions are absent from the current Haitian reality. Before the Polls, the Reconstruction of the State Haiti's true task is not electoral, but institutional. Before considering elections, the state must be rebuilt, public security restored, justice refounded, and trust re-established between the governed and the government. To foresee or announce elections without establishing these serious preconditions, regardless of the ambitious or power-hungry, would be tantamount to consecrating chaos as a mode of governance. Our country's recent history offers a sad precedent: the aborted election of November 29, 1987. At that time, however, the national situation, though tense, was far from reaching the degree of institutional and security disintegration that the former Pearl of the Antilles is experiencing today. The CEP's electoral decree, if it indeed exists, cannot mask the country's systemic drift. As long as weapons dictate the law, the state remains phantom-like, and institutions lack legitimacy, no election can translate the sovereign will of the Haitian people. However, the time for the polls has not yet come. In a country plunged into insecurity, the absence of responsible authority, and the degeneration of the state apparatus, talking about an electoral decree already seems more like wishful thinking than a realistic prospect. What is imperative today is the reasonable preparation for the replacement of the CPT. The Transitional Presidential Council is reaching the end of its self-imposed mandate with a hollow record, marked by administrative waste, improvisation, disagreement, corruption, and a clear inability to restore trust between the state and the population. It is about opening a new phase, by appealing to competent and honest technocrats, to patriots, and to worthy sons and daughters of the country. They must be able to sovereignly restore the authority of the State, a prerequisite for any credible electoral process. Only after this institutional and moral reconstruction can the constitutional referendum and general elections, which the population and people of the Republic of Haiti have been awaiting for more than five years, be carried out in serenity. Haiti cannot afford another transition without direction or coherence. The time has come for a national awakening, where the general interest must take precedence over the calculations of parties and/or mafia clans. The country's still healthy forces have a duty to unite to demand a real refoundation of the Nation-State. Without this awareness, no election will be able to restore to Haiti, our dear country, the stability and dignity it deserves. Pierre Josué Agénor Cadet, professor of history and political science at the university