Haiti’s presidential council dissolves after rocky tenure as unelected US-backed ruler remains

Haiti’s pres­i­den­tial coun­cil stepped down on Sat­ur­day af­ter al­most two years of tu­mul­tuous rule along­side a U.S.-backed prime min­is­ter, who is ex­pect­ed to re­main in pow­er as the coun­try pre­pares for the first gen­er­al elec­tions in a decade.

Days be­fore the nine-mem­ber coun­cil was dis­solved, the U.S. de­ployed a war­ship and two U.S. Coast Guard boats to wa­ters near Haiti’s cap­i­tal, where gangs con­trol 90% of Port-au-Prince.

“The naval pres­ence ap­pears to pro­vide the lat­est proof of Wash­ing­ton’s will­ing­ness to use the threat of force to shape pol­i­tics in the West­ern Hemi­sphere,” said Diego Da Rin, an an­a­lyst with the In­ter­na­tion­al Cri­sis Group.

In late Jan­u­ary, two of the coun­cil’s most in­flu­en­tial mem­bers an­nounced that a ma­jor­i­ty had vot­ed to oust Prime Min­is­ter Al­ix Di­di­er Fils-Aimé, de­fy­ing calls from the U.S. gov­ern­ment to up­hold the coun­try’s frag­ile po­lit­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty.

Days lat­er, the U.S. gov­ern­ment an­nounced visa re­vo­ca­tions for four uniden­ti­fied coun­cil mem­bers and a Cab­i­net min­is­ter.

The coun­cil’s plan to oust Fils-Aimé for rea­sons not made pub­lic ap­peared to fall to the way­side as it stepped down in an of­fi­cial cer­e­mo­ny on Sat­ur­day.

“We need to put our per­son­al in­ter­est to the side and con­tin­ue progress for se­cu­ri­ty,” said the coun­cil’s out­go­ing pres­i­dent, Lau­rent Saint-Cyr, who re­ject­ed a push to dis­miss the prime min­is­ter.

Fils-Aimé spoke briefly, say­ing he would ad­dress the na­tion lat­er in the day.

“The pres­i­den­tial coun­cil has done its work by paving the way for a gov­er­nance mind­ful of se­cu­ri­ty and elec­toral is­sues,” he said.

Da Rin said ne­go­ti­a­tions are on­go­ing to de­cide what, if any­thing, would re­place the coun­cil as a new multi­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mis­sion pre­pares to trans­form a U.N.-backed mis­sion led by Kenyan po­lice that was un­der­staffed and un­der­fund­ed.

“Clar­i­ty on who will gov­ern Haiti is es­sen­tial,” Da Rin wrote in a re­cent es­say. “Coun­tries con­tribut­ing to this force will want to know they are work­ing along­side a gov­ern­ment whose le­git­i­ma­cy is undis­put­ed.”

Feb. 7 is a his­toric date for Haiti that marks the start of de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rule af­ter a near­ly 30-year dic­ta­tor­ship. It’s al­so when pres­i­dents are tra­di­tion­al­ly sworn in.

But Haiti failed to hold gen­er­al elec­tions on Sat­ur­day as en­vi­sioned a cou­ple of years ago, with gang vi­o­lence grip­ping much of the cap­i­tal and swaths of land in the coun­try’s cen­tral re­gion. Ten­ta­tive dates were an­nounced for Au­gust and De­cem­ber, but many be­lieve it’s un­like­ly an elec­tion and a runoff will be held this year.

The coun­cil was es­tab­lished in April 2024, near­ly three years af­ter Pres­i­dent Jovenel Moïse was killed at his res­i­dence, throw­ing Haiti in­to wide­spread up­heaval.

At the time, for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Ariel Hen­ry was un­able to re­turn to Haiti fol­low­ing an of­fi­cial trip to Kenya be­cause a pow­er­ful gang coali­tion had at­tacked key state in­fra­struc­ture over the course of sev­er­al days, forc­ing the coun­try’s main in­ter­na­tion­al air­port to close for near­ly three months.

The coun­cil was cre­at­ed af­ter Caribbean lead­ers and U.S. of­fi­cials ur­gent­ly met in Ja­maica to build a frame­work for a po­lit­i­cal tran­si­tion af­ter Hen­ry re­signed.

Coun­cil mem­bers had long pledged to quell gang vi­o­lence and im­prove life for Haiti but fell over­whelm­ing­ly short.

“The gov­ern­ment has been un­able to push back crim­i­nal gangs that con­trol most of Port-au-Prince and have ex­pand­ed in­to oth­er ar­eas,” Da Rin not­ed.

The coun­cil al­so was rocked by ac­cu­sa­tions of cor­rup­tion, with a gov­ern­ment agency ac­cus­ing three mem­bers of bribery in late 2024.

As the coun­cil stepped down on Sat­ur­day, An­dré Joseph, 42, a street ven­dor who was sell­ing can­dy out­side their gov­ern­ment of­fices cel­e­brat­ed. He cur­rent­ly lives in a makeshift shel­ter — one of 1.4 mil­lion peo­ple dis­placed by gang vi­o­lence — and said he wants to re­turn home.

“Their time is up. They were there near­ly two years and didn’t do any­thing for the coun­try,” he said of the coun­cil. “Haiti needs to move on with a bet­ter gov­ern­ment in charge that could lead the coun­try in­to a bet­ter di­rec­tion.”

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP)