Haiti: Democracy Confiscated
By La Rédaction · Port-au-Prince
· 2 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
Eng. Mathias Pierre
Former presidential candidate The Haitian chaos is no longer just a cyclical crisis; it has become a system. A system where the popular will has been progressively set aside in favor of arrangements between political, economic, and social elites. Where free and honest elections should be held, there are now hushed meetings in hotel rooms, transformed into antechambers of power. Since 2021, the country has lived to the rhythm of "transitions." Five years of endless provisional rule, where each agreement presented as salvific gives birth to a new deadlock. Institutions are crumbling, public trust is fading, and violence is settling in as the ordinary mode of government. Meanwhile, those who claim to speak on behalf of the nation negotiate its direction without ever asking for its opinion. This confiscation of popular sovereignty is at the heart of the Haitian drama. No society can rebuild itself when the citizen is reduced to the role of a spectator. No stability is possible when power arises from opaque compromises rather than from the ballot box. By replacing election with co-optation, legitimacy has been replaced by convenience. The question is therefore not only security or humanitarian; it is fundamentally political. Who has the right to choose Haiti's leaders? A restricted circle meeting behind closed doors, or a mature people, heir to a history of freedom? As long as this question is not decided in favor of universal suffrage, each transition will only be another detour towards the same abyss. Five years already. And tomorrow? How much longer will the country accept that its destiny is decided without it? Haiti lacks neither human resources nor collective courage. What it lacks is a return to a simple rule: power must come from the people and belong only to them. To refuse this obvious truth is to indefinitely prolong the Haitian night.
To accept it is to finally open the way to a true renaissance.
Former presidential candidate The Haitian chaos is no longer just a cyclical crisis; it has become a system. A system where the popular will has been progressively set aside in favor of arrangements between political, economic, and social elites. Where free and honest elections should be held, there are now hushed meetings in hotel rooms, transformed into antechambers of power. Since 2021, the country has lived to the rhythm of "transitions." Five years of endless provisional rule, where each agreement presented as salvific gives birth to a new deadlock. Institutions are crumbling, public trust is fading, and violence is settling in as the ordinary mode of government. Meanwhile, those who claim to speak on behalf of the nation negotiate its direction without ever asking for its opinion. This confiscation of popular sovereignty is at the heart of the Haitian drama. No society can rebuild itself when the citizen is reduced to the role of a spectator. No stability is possible when power arises from opaque compromises rather than from the ballot box. By replacing election with co-optation, legitimacy has been replaced by convenience. The question is therefore not only security or humanitarian; it is fundamentally political. Who has the right to choose Haiti's leaders? A restricted circle meeting behind closed doors, or a mature people, heir to a history of freedom? As long as this question is not decided in favor of universal suffrage, each transition will only be another detour towards the same abyss. Five years already. And tomorrow? How much longer will the country accept that its destiny is decided without it? Haiti lacks neither human resources nor collective courage. What it lacks is a return to a simple rule: power must come from the people and belong only to them. To refuse this obvious truth is to indefinitely prolong the Haitian night.
To accept it is to finally open the way to a true renaissance.
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