Political vacuum in Haiti deepens as senators’ terms expire
Published:Tuesday | January 10, 2023 | 7:34 PM
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haiti awoke Tuesday stripped of its last democratically elected institution — this time, its Senate — an alarming development that solidifies what some call a de facto dictatorship nominally in charge of a country wracked by gang violence.
While only 10 senators had been symbolically representing the nation's 11 million people in recent years because Haiti had failed to hold legislative elections since October 2019, their terms expired overnight, leaving Haiti without a single lawmaker in its House or Senate amid a spiralling political crisis.
Organised crime groups have been running virtually unchecked since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, who himself had been ruling by decree.
“It's a very grim situation,” said Alex Dupuy, a Haitian-born sociologist at Wesleyan University, “one of the worst crises that Haiti has had since the Duvalier dictatorship.”
The bloody regime of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, who fled the country in 1986, marked the last time Haiti lacked elected officials.
The Parliament building in downtown Port-au-Prince remained deserted on Tuesday, with only security guards at the gate.
Similar scenes were evident outside Haiti's non-functioning Supreme Court and electoral commission.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who assumed leadership of Haiti with the backing of the international community after Moïse was killed, has failed to hold general elections despite multiple pledges over the last year and a half to do so.
His latest promise, on January 1, was that the Supreme Court would be restored and a provisional electoral council tasked with setting a reasonable date for elections.
But Henry offered no timeline, even as he asked Haitians to trust each other and “take me at my word when I speak of my government's desire to do everything possible to reconstitute our democratic institutions.”
“There are no powers to check his decisions,” Dupuy said.
“As long as that situation continues, Henry is going to be behaving like a dictator.”
A spokesman for Henry's office declined to comment.
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