Where do preparations for the elections stand?

Lire cet article en français

Some 1,400 polling centers have already been assessed and are ready for voter registration across the country.

But the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) is giving no guarantee that the elections will be held by the end of this year — a first in the country in a decade.

Speaking with AyiboPost, CEP President Jacques Desrosiers said that major issues still need to be resolved before the elections can take place, chief among them security.

Voter registration opens at the BED du Nord on Monday, July 20. Photo: Noé Duverné, journalist.

« The implementation of any electoral timetable depends on improving or creating a favorable and acceptable environment for organizing elections throughout the country, » Desrosiers said.

According to the CEP president, insecurity affects about 28 of Haiti’s 145 communes. Because of the state’s absence in these areas, the institution is not taking them into account in the process of assessing polling centers.

The CEP plans to publish a new electoral calendar, Desrosiers said.

For the first time, unlike in previous years, the electoral register will be compiled through voter registration in order to allow displaced people to vote, according to the CEP. The institution plans to dedicate a 90-day period beginning on July 20 to this stage.

Voter registration opens at the BED du Nord on Monday, July 20. Photo: Noé Duverné, journalist.

During that period, every prospective voter will have to go to the polling center closest to their place of residence, or to the one they choose, with their national identification card in order to register.

This approach has drawn criticism. Most elected offices are assigned by electoral district, based on the area where a person is expected to vote.

According to observers, some voters from a lawless electoral district, for example, could end up being registered on the voter list of a polling station located in a region other than their own.

Training for election security officers in Cap-Haïtien at Philippe Guerrier High School. Photo: Chéry Giranot, journalist.

« If a voter comes to register, how will the CEP know that they come from one electoral district rather than another, so that they can be assigned to the appropriate polling station and prevent a candidate from losing the votes of those electors? » asked Ricardo Augustin, a former electoral adviser during the 2015 elections.

According to the CEP president, voter registration will make it possible to clean up the electoral roll.

Voter registration will allow the institution to address problems « related to displaced persons, people who have died, and people who have been convicted but are still listed on the register, » Desrosiers said.

Cleaning up the voter roll remains an important issue because, in 2023, Max Délices, the director general of the Provisional Electoral Council, told AyiboPost that the names of thousands of deceased citizens — who had never been officially removed from the records — could still appear on the next electoral register.

Training for election security officers in Cap-Haïtien at Philippe Guerrier High School. Photo: Chéry Giranot, journalist.

Daniel Jean Musset, president of the Departmental Electoral Bureau (BED) for the North, said the office is making significant progress in preparations for the upcoming elections. He said, however, that he is concerned about efforts to raise public awareness ahead of the vote.

According to Musset, 211 registration and polling centers have already been assessed across the nineteen communes of the North department. A total of 627 electoral security officers and more than 500 electoral register agents have been trained.

In Saint-Marc, 29 polling centers have already been assessed, according to an official from the Communal Electoral Bureau.

Training for election security officers in Cap-Haïtien at Philippe Guerrier High School. Photo: Chéry Giranot, journalist.

The official expressed concern about areas controlled by gangs, where electoral register agents will not be able to operate.

Despite these preparations, skepticism remains.

Augustin believes it is already too late to organize elections by the end of the year.

The CEP plans to hold a popular ratification process to amend certain articles of the Constitution at the same time as the general elections.

Article 72 of the electoral decree provides that certain articles of the Constitution will be amended through popular ratification, without specifying which ones.

The pact signed on February 21 between the government of Alix Didier Fils-Aimé and several political parties also provides for amendments to certain articles of the Constitution. Those articles will be proposed by the parties that signed the pact.

According to Augustin, who also holds a doctorate in political science, this is not the proper method for amending the Constitution. So far, he said, no one knows which articles are to be amended, what the proposed changes will be, and no public debate has taken place on the issue.

According to Augustin, a referendum decree is necessary to carry out this project. In his view, the referendum cannot simply be folded into the electoral decree, at the risk of reopening the debate over constitutional reform on a continual basis.

In a joint statement, the government and the CEP set a budget of US$120 million for implementing the electoral process.

The statement specifies that the budget may be revised if necessary, by decision of the two institutions.

The two institutions agreed to amend the June 2, 2026 electoral decree after several weeks of disagreement.

According to the CEP president, anyone sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council will not be eligible to run in the upcoming elections.

The CEP has extended the registration period for political groups until July 31.