Caribbean Matters: Haiti’s unelected new leaders create more chaos

Haiti’s new unelected governing body, the Transitional Presidential Council, was sworn in on April 25. As Reuters notes, “[t]he transitional government's mandate runs until February 2026, by when there are slated to be elections, and cannot be renewed. No date has been set for its naming of a new prime minister or council president.”

Most U.S. media news coverage is currently focused on Israel/Palestine, Donald Trump’s first criminal trial, upcoming elections, or sporting events, meaning that the plight of our Caribbean neighbor Haiti takes a back seat once again. This is true even though our government, over the years, has been one of the major players in Haitian politics, interventions, and invasions. This week, let’s take some time to become more aware of the dire situation there, and to do what we can to help and support the Haitian people on the island, as well as the Haitian American community here in the U.S.

According to news reports, the council members are already at odds with each other, and questions are being raised about why the Haitian people will have to wait almost two years for elections.

RELATED STORY: Caribbean Matters: The push for yet another 'intervention' in Haiti

Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean.

As Juhakenson Blaise and Fritznel D. Octave wrote May 2 for The Haitian Times:

Who’s running Haiti?  

Haiti has no president and no functioning prime minister yet, but a nine-member presidential council run by Edgard Gardy Leblanc Fils    

The appointments of former Senator Edgard Gardy Leblanc Fils as president of the Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) and former Sports Minister Fritz Bélizaire as prime minister have stirred reactions and confusion in Haiti and the Haitian Diaspora following an unexpected “majority” vote under a new faction created within the TPC. Four out of seven voting members of the council made these appointments simultaneously on Tuesday under a newly formed faction known as the Indissoluble Majority Bloc (BMI, per its French acronym).

The move has sparked tensions among the remaining council members, who view the bloc’s actions as dishonest. 

[...]

The guidelines under which any governing body in Haiti operates must be in accordance with the rules and policies set forth by Caricom-mediated discussions. Under these guidelines, the nine members must run the country together— seven members with voting rights and two, without, serving as council observers.

It was also under the purview of the council as a whole to appoint a prime minister as head of the country’s government. BMI, however, attempted to designate Fritz Bélizaire without input from the entire group, stalling his confirmation due to opposition from the other three non-consulted council members.

CBS News consulted The Haitian Times’ founder and publisher, Garry Pierre-Pierre, for this April 30 report on the selection of the TPC.

On May 1, Dánica Coto covered the dissension for The Associated Press:

The unexpected announcement of a prime minister divides Haiti’s newly created transitional council

The Montana Accord, a civil society group represented by a council member with voting powers, denounced in a statement late Tuesday what it called a “complot” hatched by four council members against the Haitian people “in the middle of the night.” “The political and economic mafia forces have decided to take control of the presidential council and the government so that they can continue to control the state,” the Montana Accord said.

[...]

Robert Fatton, a Haitian politics expert at the University of Virginia, noted that some of the parties represented on the council are responsible for the current chaos in Haiti.

“It’s a contradiction,” he said. “Every time we seem to be in a crisis, we reappoint the same people and hope that they change their ways, but they do not.”

Raising the same criticism is Michael Deibert, author of “Notes From the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti,” and “Haiti Will Not Perish: A Recent History.”

He noted in a recent essay that the council is “dominated by the same political currents who have spent the last 25 years driving Haiti over a cliff, taking advantage of impoverished young men in the slums to be used as political bludgeons before - bloated on the proceeds from kidnapping, extortion, drug trafficking and other criminal enterprises - these groups outgrew the necessity of their patrons.”

It took awhile to find the “recent essay” by Michael Deibert, author of several books and essays on Haiti, that was mentioned in Coto’s AP report.

Rehabilitation Without Reconciliation

It will take more than politics as usual to save Haiti.

Haiti’s political class has shown no sign of coming to a settling of accounts with the country’s people yet. In fact, on 5 April. the transition council released a statement where it outlined a litany of tasks beyond its mandate it said it would be addressing, including the “organization of a national conference and constitutional reform,” which it has no legal or constitutional authority to do and which was placed before the organization of elections on its list of priorities.

But ordinary Haitian citizens have a patriotism their leaders seem to shed when they enter the political arena. With no government to even report to, Haiti’s security forces - the Police Nationale d'Haïti (PNH) and the Forces Armées d'Haïti (FADH) - heroically defended the Port-au-Prince airport from a coordinated assault by hundreds of gang members. Into the maelstrom of violence, the 33rd class of the PNH graduated early, young Haitians who wear the uniform of their nation with pride and dignity.

The country’s civil society is full of organizations such Lakou Lapè, the Fondasyon Konesans Ak Libète (FOKAL), Solidarite Fanm Ayisyèn (SOFA), the Sant Kominote Altènatif Ak Lapè (SAKALA) and many others - struggling against mighty odds every day to build a more just and inclusive Haiti for its citizens. And there are many who already hoping for the clouds to part and for the sun to shine down on a new path for Haiti and its people. More so than the country’s traditional politicians, it is the mass of people who are the fonts from where any new future for may spring. One hopes it is they who will be plotting this new way forward. “We're broken into pieces,” a friend in Port-au-Prince recently wrote to me. “I have to go deep inside of me to find courage and hope to process this level of cynicism. But I will stay. I think it's important for me to witness this, same as the earthquake, to make sure that if I survive I never forget.”

On May 2, Haitian Canadian independent journalist Harold Isaac reported for Reuters that the controversial appointment of the former sports minister to prime minister had been “walked back.”

Haiti transition council walks back PM nomination, exposing divide

The majority of Haiti's transition council who had nominated an interim prime minister earlier this week has walked back the decision, exposing the internal turmoil of the group charged with leading the Caribbean nation out of a prolonged crisis.

Late on Wednesday, four of the council's seven voting members issued a statement saying they will go back to an original agreement to choose a prime minister from a pool of applicants, after having tapped former official Fritz Belizaire for the job.

On Tuesday, the majority bloc within the council tapped Belizaire as prime minister, with former Senate leader Edgard Leblanc picked to head the council.  

A public vote had been expected to take place for both posts, but did not happen.

The four members who reversed course on the prime minister nomination call themselves the "Indissoluble Majority Bloc," and by Thursday afternoon they had not put forward a potential replacement.

On May 5, Paulo Rosas Chávez, a Peruvian freelance journalist, published interviews with Haitians who raised some of the major contradictions about the council—referred to here as the CPT.

Haiti: Can a not-so-new council of unelected officials rebuild a broken country?

Haiti has a new government. But just like many before it, it doesn't represent Haitians

Robenson Glésile is a Haitian activist and human rights defender. He arrived in Rosario, Argentina, in 2011, after the terrible earthquake that shook his country. From a distance, but in daily contact with his family in Port-au-Prince, he is wary of what the CPT can achieve in such a divided social context.

"There is a feeling that Haitians cannot lead, that is the image that the leaders are projecting," he says, emphasizing the dismal results achieved in recent years by the traditional political class, allied with the United States and the international community.

He is part of one of the largest diasporas in the Americas. A diaspora that, he recognizes, is fed in part by the idea of leaving behind an unviable country.

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Glésile considers that the CPT is made up of "the same old faces" which have long governed Haiti, and who lack any electoral legitimacy. "I always say that the alternative would be to create something different, that has nothing to do with those that have already failed. We need new people, the youth, but I don't see the spark of a new group with proposals," he said.

Some other key quotes, from journalist Sandrine Exil, note that "in the CPT there is no clear or dynamic representation of the Haitian people," which is imporant because "without this inclusion, it is not possible to create a real negotiating table with the gangs." Exil adds that the council members all “belong to political parties” rather than being elected officials, so they were never chosen “by Haitians as representatives.”

"The population, civil society, and even the gangs have cried out for a Haitian solution for Haitians," Exil remarked, adding that part of Haitians perceive the CPT as a form of intervention by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and other foreign forces.

Making the situation worse is the flow of U.S.-manufactured weaponry into Haiti, arming the gangs that brought much of the country to a halt—a situation affecting many nations in the Caribbean, which we covered here in January.