The World Briefly

April 10, 2024

Black and Blue

Haiti

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Leaders in Haiti have reached a deal for a transitional government to end the gang-fuelled chaos that has battered the nation, pending the approval of the outgoing administration, Agence France Presse reported.

The deal, agreed to over the weekend, establishes a nine-member council made up of politicians, the private sector and civil society, with seven voting members and two observers. It aims to hold a presidential election by 2026, 10 years after Haitians last went to the polls. The plan was sent to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) late Sunday.

The transitional council is intended to replace Prime Minister Ariel Henry and have a mandate until Feb. 7, 2026. Henry, who resigned last month amid intensifying gang violence and the threat of civil war, had conditioned his departure on the creation of a transition council.

Internal bickering delayed the agreement, AFP wrote.

The new authority will have to appoint a new prime minister and government to lead Haiti until “democratic, free and credible elections” are possible, a statement read. Council members and interim ministers won’t be allowed to run in the elections.

One of the other priorities of the transitional body will be security, namely addressing the anarchy blighting the country, where armed gangs have taken over large swathes of territory, attacking civilians and police.

These gangs forced the shutdown of the airport in the capital, Port-au-Prince, preventing Henry from returning home from Kenya, where he was securing a deal with Nairobi to send an international police mission to Haiti backed by the United Nations.

CARICOM, which has played a significant role in negotiations, is to send the transition council deal to Henry’s government, which must then formally greenlight it.

This story originally appeared in the April 10, 2024 newsletter, The Third Wheel.