Haiti appoints council to oversee electoral process

PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, CMC – Haiti has taken a significant step towards staging fresh presidential and legislative elections with the appointment of a Provisional Electoral Council (CEP).

Haiti has been without an elected head of state since President Jovenel Moise was assassinated at his private residence overlooking the capital on July 7, 2021. Moise had assumed the presidency in February 2017, after being elected in November 2016.

The country is expected to hold elections by 2026.

Earlier this week, the  Council of Ministers validated  the CEP, long demanded by the international community, to prepare the country for its first general elections since 2016, to supervise them and to guarantee the transparency of the upcoming electoral processes.

Smith Augustin, a member of the country's transitional presidential council (TCP), confirmed that the electoral council had been created, although it is composed of only seven members out of the nine that the law provides.

Augustin stated that the other two members would probably be announced in the coming days.

The electoral council, which represents groups such as farmers, journalists, human rights activists and the voodoo community, is responsible for organising the elections and helping to create the legal framework to organise them.

The previous electoral council was dissolved in September 2021 by former prime minister  Ariel Henry, who had accused it of being “partisan”.

His decision delayed elections that had been scheduled for November 2021 and prompted critics to accuse him of clinging to power.

Henry was forced to resign earlier this year following the formation of the TCP, whose leader, Edgard Leblanc Fils, told CARICOM leaders at their summit in Grenada in July that he expects presidential and legislative elections to be held in the French-speaking country by the end of 2025.

“Since our new efforts and the placement of the new transitional organ, we are now going to put in place our transitional electoral process or system which will allow us to have our general elections at the end of next year.

“We have also launched our national conference which will review the Constitution, particularly redefining the relationship between the state and the population as well as  set the tone for the new state of operations

“It is within this difficult context marked particularly by the gun violence that is currently taking place in the capital of Haiti and in the other villages of the country. It is our aim to remove Haiti from this situation,” Fils said.

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