Haiti enters new era of governing: presidential council sworn in, prime minister resigns

Haiti entered a new era of governance on Thursday with the official installation of a new nine-member presidential council in a two-part ceremony in the country’s gang-ridden capital.

In a last-minute decision, members opted to secretly take the oath of office on the grounds of the National Palace — which has been under constant attack by armed gangs — after initially deciding the security risks were too great.

The intimate ceremony included red and blue banners — the colors of the Haitian flag — a podium with the presidential seal and the palace police band playing the national anthem to welcome the new transition.

The mostly all-male council with two non-voting members is tasked with forging a path out of the complex crisis, which has led to thousands of deaths and the destruction of public and private property, and leading Haiti to eventual elections.

As the ceremony wrapped up Thursday morning and council members prepared to make their way across town to the previously announced public ceremony at the former offices of the prime minister, the official resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry and his cabinet was made public.

In his last council of ministers meeting on Wednesday night, Henry informed his cabinet he would not stay around for the transition and, after two months of being locked out of Haiti, he was stepping down as of Thursday’s swearing-in and would name Finance Minister Michel Patrick Boisvert as interim prime minister. The resignation of government ministers, other than Boisvert, leaves a political vacuum as Haiti continues to struggle with a worsening security and humanitarian crisis.

Though no incidents were reported during either ceremony, there was non-stop shooting in downtown Port-au-Prince for more than three hours. In welcoming the council’s official installation, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, through his spokesman, called on the new authorities to expedite the transitional governing arrangements.

During the public event, Boisvert said Haiti finds itself at a crossroads in search of a solution to a crisis that has had grave consequences for its nearly 12 million people.

“The situation is serious,” he said.

After two long months of dialogue and debate, and with the support of the international community, Boisvert said, “a solution was reached” among Haiti’s political and civic groups, with the help of the Caribbean Community.

“Today is an important day in the life of our dear republic,” he said. “The day in deed opens the prospects of a solution...of addressing the multidimensional crisis the country is experiencing with the view of achieving a definitive outcome.”

Boisvert had been acting on Henry’s behalf while the prime minister remained out of Haiti after being kept out of the country. Henry had been on an official visit to Kenya finalizing an agreement for the deployment of a multinational security support force to help the Haiti National Police combat gangs, when the violence shut down the country’s airports and he was pressured by Washington to resign.

Boisvert will be in charge of the country’s day-to-day governance while the presidential council works on finding a replacement for Henry and readying the country for the arrival of the Kenya-led mission.

Henry had initially announced his intentions on March 11 to step down from office after the council’s swearing-in.

Secret ceremony

Though on Wednesday council members had said the swearing-in would take place at the former offices of the prime minister of Haiti, Villa d’Accueil, due to security concerns at the National Palace, they had in fact planned since Tuesday to do the ceremony in secret at the palace.

After the swearing-in they went to the Villa d’Accueil, where the panel’s only woman, Régine Abraham, a representative of the inter-faith community, addressed the nation. She opened her remarks by recalling the still unsolved, July 7, 2021, assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, which plunged the country further into chaos.

During the gathering, members of the new government mingled with members from the business community as well as foreign diplomats, who also found themselves in a receiving line with some of the very political figures their respective nations had sanctioned during Henry’s tenure.

After Thursday’s swearing-in, the new council has to select a president from among their seven voting members and begin the process of choosing Henry’s replacement. Together, they will appoint a new government.

In his resignation note, Henry thanked the members of his government and the security forces who accompanied him during his nearly three years in office.

“I am grateful to you for the sacrifices made during these troubled times,” he said. “I am devastated by the enormous losses and suffering endured by the Haitian people during this crisis.”

Though Henry was the longest-serving prime minister in Haiti’s troubled political history, his tenure was marked by an unprecedented period of gang violence and turmoil, kidnappings and a spiraling humanitarian crisis, in which more than 5 million Haitians are going hungry. His inability to stem the violence and control the spread of gangs, which now control more than 80% of metropolitan Port-au-Prince, made him an unpopular figure inside the country and among Caribbean leaders, who brokered the new governing transition.

One overlooked achievement of his tenure: Haiti’s finances. The government increased revenue from the country’s ports by cracking down on corruption, and Haiti recently paid Venezuela $500 million toward its debt as part of negotiations to get the South American nation to erase nearly $2 billion borrowed as part of the Petrocaribe oil program.

Since January, more than 2,500 Haitians have been killed or injured, according to the U.N., the deadliest three months since the global body’s political office in Haiti began tracking gang-related deaths in 2021.

Henry was named prime minister by Moïse about two months before he was assassinated. Both men kept the nomination quiet and it wasn’t made public until days before Moïse’s slaying.

During his tenure, Henry was accused of having been involved in the president’s death because of a phone call from one of the suspects. But both the suspect, Joseph Félix Badio, and a Haitian judge investigating the assassination cleared him of any involvement.

The presidential council

Here are the names of the groups that have named members to the council, and their representatives on the panel:

▪ Collective of political parties of January 30. The alliance of political parties is also known by its Creole spelling Collectif and includes the party of former President Michel Martelly. The alliance’s representative is former Sen. Edgard LeBlanc Fils, 68, a co-founder of the Organization of the People in Struggle, a political party. An engineer, he was president of the Haitian Senate from 1995 to 2000 during the administration of President of René Préval.

▪ December 21 Agreement. The coalition that had backed Henry and imploded after his forced resignation named Louis Gérald Gilles, a former senator. Gilles is a former member of Fanmi Lavalas, the political party headed by former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In recent years, he has been close to Martelly’s Haitian Tèt Kale Party or PHTK party.

▪ EDE/RED/Compromis Historique. The coalition led by former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Claude Joseph, who served in the government of former President Jovenel Moïse, finally settled on Smith Augustin, a former Haiti ambassador to the Dominican Republic, after two previous nominees pulled out.

▪ Fanmi Lavalas. The political party of former President Aristide chose architectand urban planner Leslie Voltaire, who studied at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and has a master’s degree in urban planning from Cornell University in New York. Voltaire, 75, is a former minister for Haitians living abroad. After Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake he was involved in reconstruction efforts and unsuccessfully ran for president in the election that followed. Educated in Mexico, he is fluent in Spanish, French, English and Creole.

▪ Montana Accord. The group is named after an Aug. 30, 2021, agreement signed at the Montana Hotel in Pétion-Ville, the wealthy suburb of Port-au-Prince, and is led by the Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis. The group has named Fritz Alphonse Jean, who served as interim prime minister of Haiti’s 2016 caretaker government. A former governor of the Banque de la République d’Haïti from 1998 to 2001, Jean has been involved in promoting development in the rural sectors of northern Haiti. He’s a U.S.-educated economist who is considered more of a technocrat than politician.

▪ Platform Pitit Desalin Party. After its leader, Jean-Charles Moïse, described the council as a seven-headed snake and rejected an offer to join the panel, the Platform Pitit Desalin decided to name a representative anyway and appointed Emmanuel Vertilaire, a judge from the northern region of Haiti.

▪ The private sector. Haiti’s influential private sector has faced its own internal differences after the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Haiti said it was not consulted on naming a representative. A group representing employers’ associations and groups of Haitian businessmen and women has named Laurent Saint-Cyr as its representative on the presidential panel.

The two non-voting members are:

▪ Civil Society. Frinel Joseph, a pastor and former member of the electoral council, was named as the representative of civil society.

▪ Inter-faith community. The Rally for a National and Sovereign Understanding has named Régine Abraham, and agronomist who has worked in public administration and is the only woman in the group.