Haiti’s transitional council took power in a ceremony Thursday, formalizing the resignation of former Prime Minister Ariel Henry as the Caribbean country seeks to establish security after years of gang violence sowing chaos and misery.
Henry’s finance minister, Michel Patrick Boisvert, will serve as interim prime minister until the transition council appoints a new head of government, a cabinet and a provisional electoral council to pave the way for a possible vote.
“Today is an important day in the life of our dear republic, this day indeed opens the prospect of a solution,” Boisvert said after the nine-person transition council was sworn in Thursday morning.
Régine Abraham, a non-voting member of the council, thanked Haitian security forces and international mediators and said the council would focus on security, a national consultation on constitutional reform, preparation for elections, reconstruction of the justice system and the economy.
“We are seeing the total collapse of our institutions and the failure of a government,” she said.
The residents of Port-au-Prince were “literally taken hostage,” she added.
“Faced with this unprecedented crisis, the entire population recognized the urgency of a firm hand to pull us out of this spiral of despair and destruction. »
Even as the council was being sworn in, local media reported fires and gunfire in homes in the capital’s downtown and neighborhoods of Delmas, publishing photos of columns of gray smoke rising above above the horizon and videos of families leaving the neighborhood with their belongings.
Armed gangs, equipped with weapons largely from the United States, for years strengthened their grip on the capital and sought to overthrow Henry.
Since he promised to resign last month, they have called for a broader “revolution.”
Earlier this week, gang leader Jimmy “Barbeque” Cherizier warned members of the transition council to “brace themselves.”
Unverified voice recordings circulated on social media this weekend, during which Chérizier appeared to order his soldiers to indiscriminately burn down houses in Bas Delmas, a poor neighborhood in the capital where he grew up.
During the ceremony, organized under high security at the Prime Minister’s office at the Villa d’Accueil, Boisvert and the members of the transition council were accompanied by senior police and military officials.
Henry announced last month that he would resign once the board was in place, which was initially scheduled to take place within days but was delayed due to disagreements over who should be on it.
Henry had left Haiti in late February to seek support from the country’s disarmed police, but found himself stranded in Puerto Rico as gangs threatened to completely take over the capital.
Boisvert served as interim prime minister in Henry’s absence.
The mandate of the transitional government runs until February 2026, when elections are scheduled, and cannot be renewed. No date has been set for the appointment of a new prime minister or council president.
‘COMPLETE INTEREGIN’
“We just hope that the council will quickly choose a president or a coordinator in order to move on to the second phase, which is the appointment of a prime minister and members of the government,” said James Boyard, security expert at the University of State of Haiti. .
“The new transitional government has a lot of work ahead of it and, apart from security, all issues are urgent. »
Diego Da Rin, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, warned of tensions within the council as different factions jostle for power, and of a “long and rocky road ahead.”
The local organization Together Against Corruption (ECC) published a letter calling on the new authorities to demonstrate financial transparency to “prove their desire to contribute to the construction of a government that breaks with the past”.
The council’s installation is seen as a key step toward deploying a multinational security mission requested by Henry in 2022 and approved by the United Nations more than six months ago.
Although Kenya offered to lead the mission, plans were put on hold last month pending the establishment of a new Haitian government.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on the new authorities to quickly implement new governance arrangements to enable the deployment of the mission.
The mission received less money and fewer troops than the UN said it needed.
The members of the council must, according to the decree which installs them, support the “accelerated deployment” of the mission.
But some Haitians are wary after previous international interventions left behind a deadly cholera outbreak and a sex abuse scandal.
Others hope the mission could help restore much-needed security and pave the way for possible elections.
According to UN estimates, more than 2,500 people were killed or injured in gang violence between January and March, while hundreds of thousands were internally displaced and millions more are facing catastrophic famine.
Major ports have been closed for more than a month, but Hope for Haiti, a Florida-based nonprofit, said Thursday that a first humanitarian flight since the closure of the capital’s airport had landed at Port -au-Prince: an American military plane carrying 20 pallets of rehydration solution for cholera patients.
Separately, the Haitian National Police said they had received a shipment of equipment paid for by the Haitian government and flown in by U.S. authorities.
Foreign diplomats hailed the ceremony as an important step in restoring security, and Kenyan President William Ruto said the nation was “ready and willing” with his counterparts to “rapidly implement security support infrastructure “.
“Kenya assures Haiti’s Presidential Transitional Council of its full support as it guides the country through this complex interregnum,” Ruto said on X.
The council members installed were the same as those announced last week: seven voting members, all men, including representatives from various political parties as well as former diplomats, a lawyer and a businessman, and two observers without right to vote: a pastor and former government. advise.
“We continue the fight for the transformation of our country,” former Central Bank Governor Fritz Alphonse Jean, one of the council members, said on X.
“The country needs the talents of all its sons and daughters, here and in the diaspora, for the construction of the new Haiti. »
New York Post
