Haiti holds out hope for presidential election

By James Blears

The new leader of the Transitional Presidential Council, Fritz Alphonse Jean, identifies and highlights the monumental scale of the problem of the street gangs, which launched yet another attack on the capital, Port Au Prince, this week. This lawless criminal alliance already controls eighty-five percent of the capital and seeks to extend that. Jean starkly warns: “Our country is at war and we need to be unified in order to win it.”

Although the poorest nation in the western hemisphere is included in the Trump administration cuts to USAID globally, so far these swinging economic strictures have not been brought to bear on the Kenyan led Multi-National Support Mission, which numbers eight hundred of the total force of one thousand personnel. Kenyan President William Ruto confirms that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has made this assurance in a telephone call, with both re-affirming their commitment to strengthen cooperation.

The security force was originally authorized by the UN Security Council in 2023. Although numerically outnumbered, they represent a beacon of hope, by reinforcing beleaguered Haitian law and order.  

The situation, which was already grave, completely spiraled out of control following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise on 7 July 2021 by Colombian mercenaries. Since then, the existence of democracy in Haiti, has been hanging by a slender proverbial thread, with thousands killed and more than a million people rendered homeless.