Port-au-Prince, October 27, 2025.- Within five months of the constitutional deadline of February 7, 2026, the organization of general elections in Haiti looks like an insoluble equation. After the establishment of the Transitional Presidential Council (CPT) under the auspices of the Agreement of 3 April 2024, priorities, restoration of security, constitutional reform and elections are at a standstill. While the CPT has just abandoned the referendum process, the promise of an electoral calendar by 15 November, announced by Councillor-President Frinel Joseph, is met with widespread scepticism. Between the territorial grip of gangs, a crisis of acute confidence in the leaders and the logistical impossibility, citizens and analysts doubt the ability of the existing power to hold this bet.
The political transition, supposed to ease the deep crisis inherited from Dr. Ariel Henry's government, seems to simmer. The mandate of the CPT, confirmed by the Councillors-Presidents Laurent Saint-Cyr and Frinel Joseph to complete on 7 February 2026, is already largely under way. Joseph's announcement in Le Nouvelliste on Monday, 20 October, promising a date of elections for mid-November, has the effect of a time bomb: he admits that the election will not allow the installation of new elected officials before the end of their own term.
This statement, made under the apparent pressure of the international community, including the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (UNIH) and the United States, exposes the contradictions of a power unable to move forward. Moreover, the President of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), Jacques Desrosiers, indicated that he was not informed of this imminent fixing of a date, illustrating a possible cacophony at the top of the electoral apparatus.
The wall of insecurity on the ground, the absolute priority of the 3 April Agreement, security, remains a chimera. The organisation of elections is judged « categorically impossible » by Walkens Jean, former member of the Municipal Electoral Bureau (BEC) in the Centre department. « Key participation departments, such as West, Artibonite and Centre, are mostly controlled by armed gangs », warn him. This analysis echoes the direct threats of the coalition leader « Viv ansanm », Barbecue, of « kanpe an kwa » (deletion) to any electoral process. Mr Jean is formal: « Unless an electronic vote is taken, the future leaders will be illegitimate, as the population will not sacrifice themselves to vote. ».
This sense of instrumental insecurity is shared. Jackson Dena, coordinator of the VEYE-YO party for the commune of Port-Salut (South) goes further, denouncing a « State security ». « The CPT has no legal provision for holding elections. These people make one with gangs. I will never participate in these gang elections », he hammers.
A crisis of confidence and legitimacy beyond the logistics set up by the BECs and BEDs, endowment of materials, is the very legitimacy of the organizers that is questioned.
For Pierre Augustin AUGUSTE, lawyer and teacher, the « No » No call. « A group that will sanction the vote of citizens must have the credit of the people. These leaders do not have this credit, they are not there by the choice of the people », he analyses.
According to him, the CPT, a compromise rather than a legal process, lacks impartiality and is satisfied with the privileges of power.
An opinion nuanced by Evens François, a law student, who describes a painful dilemma: « We must choose between evil and worst. The bad thing is that these people in power can't make elections. The worst part is wondering who else can do it? The same faces failed. » He concluded, resigned: « I'd rather let them try. »
The diaspora equation
The credibility of a future election also depends on inclusion. From the United States, Wilda Nathan, a member of the diaspora, questions the ability of current leaders to organize « good elections » while excluding Haitians from abroad. « The current government cannot carry out credible elections without a mechanism of diaspora involvement »She insists, considering that Haiti would need today a new consensus figure, like Ertha Pascal Trouillot, to ensure a neutral and reliable process.
W.A.
