Haiti’s Presidential Transitional Council agreed Monday night to ratify an electoral law to hold general elections. The organization’s president, Laurent Saint-Cyr, announced the agreement reached at the cabinet meeting that paves the way for the first presidential elections since 2016, which were won by the last president, Jovenel Moïse, who was assassinated in 2021. “By taking this decisive step, and maintaining our full commitment to restoring security, we reaffirm our commitment to putting Haiti back on the right track towards democratic legitimacy and stability,” he wrote on social networks.
The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture has approved an electoral decree paving the way for free and transparent elections to elect a president in Haiti, the main mission of the organisation, which has been supported by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), since its establishment in March 2024. However, the unprecedented political instability afflicting the country – which has changed its prime minister three times in recent years – and the security crisis have pushed the boundaries for the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture to achieve its mission. Moreover, the group’s credibility has been severely damaged, not only by complaints about the lack of results, but also by the involvement of three council members in a corruption scandal.
After approval of the letter, Haiti’s transitional government will be able to announce an official timetable for elections. “We must finally provide the Haitian people with the opportunity to choose freely and responsibly who will lead them,” said Saint-Cyr, who congratulated members of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and the government on the results.
Although it still has a tortuous road ahead, the hope of voting again and resuming a transitional path comes to Haiti 20 months after its last prime minister, Ariel Henry, resigned and took office in 2021, following the assassination of then-President Jovenel Moise at the hands of Colombian mercenaries. Henry left his position amid threats of another assassination, and between the residents’ demands for a UN mission to intervene in the security crisis, and the gangs’ demands for him to resign in exchange for a truce to stop the kidnappings, murders, and rapes that took place in broad daylight. Since then, the nine members of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture have become the political base of Haiti, with the presidency rotating among them.
The group’s last prime minister, Alex Didier Fils-Aime, was surrounded by controversy after the United States imposed sanctions on a member of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, Fritz Alphonse Jahn, in what he denounced as an attempt to influence Haitian politics. Alphonse Jean stressed during a press conference in Port-au-Prince that “the decisions of the Transitional Presidential Council are our national sovereignty.”
Three of the seven council members with voting powers were not present at Monday’s meeting, where the election law was approved, including Jan, according to a statement issued by the Associated Press, citing the newspaper. Le Novelty. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture intends to hold the first round of voting in August and the final round in December next year. But the gang violence crisis may delay the election date. The deadline for the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture to abandon the country’s presidential administration and transition to a democratic government is next February 7.