Haiti has lost its prime minister. Gangs aren’t going anywhere
GARRY CONILLE lasted 166 days as Haiti’s prime minister. It was a miserable term. In June, one month after he took office, a UN-authorised security force of some 400 Kenyan police officers arrived. For a moment, some Haitians may have hoped that years of violence, impunity and suspended democracy might be coming to an end. No such luck. The undermanned Kenyan force has made little difference. Deaths from gang violence have increased since they arrived (see chart). The gangs that run Haiti remain in control.
On top of this intractable security crisis, 12m Haitians now find themselves thrust even deeper into a constitutional morass. Haiti has not had a president since 2021, when Jovenel Moïse was assassinated. Subsequent appointed leaders have failed to hold elections, in large part because gang control over much of Haiti makes fair elections impossible.
Mr Conille was fired after a vote on November 8th by Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council, a nine-person body appointed in April by Haiti’s cabinet (none of them elected politicians) to carry out presidential duties. In normal times only parliament could remove a prime minister, but every seat in Haiti’s parliament has been vacant since January 2023. Mr Conille’s job, and the council’s, was to secure the country and prepare for elections in 2025.
The council reportedly fired Mr Conille not for failing at this task (though he looked likely to do so) but for failing to keep council members happy. The relationship has been fractious since the council appointed Mr Conille in May, but the seeds of his dismissal seem to have been sown in October, when Haiti’s anti-corruption body accused three members of the council of soliciting bribes. Mr Conille asked the president of the council to remove the accused members. The three council members, Smith Augustin, Emmanuel Vertilaire and Louis Gérald Gilles, deny the charges. They remain on the council that fired Mr Conille.
With his dismissal, the succession of unelected officials is set to continue, further weakening the legitimacy of Haiti’s government. The council has appointed Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, a businessman who once ran Haiti’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry, to take over from Mr Conille. In an open letter Mr Conille wrote that his ouster “weakens our country and seriously compromises our chances of overcoming the crisis”.
The help from abroad is underfunded and outgunned and took too long to arrive. In September Kenya’s President William Ruto said that he would send another 600 officers to Haiti in November. That would bring the security force to just under half of the 2,500 that was originally promised. Of the other countries that committed forces to the mission, only Jamaica, Belize and the Bahamas have sent any: 24, two and six respectively. There are at least six times as many gang members as there are foreign security personnel.
In the meantime Haitians continue to suffer. On November 8th the UN noted that 700,000 Haitians have been forced from their homes, about half of them children. It said that there are “pockets of famine-like conditions” in some of the encampments to which they have fled, the first time since 2022 that the UN has observed hunger that severe in Haiti. Half the country is experiencing “acute food insecurity”, according to the UN.
Many of the displaced attempt to cross the border to the Dominican Republic, or find a boat that can take them to the United States. Both migrant destinations are hardening their attitudes, however. President-elect Donald Trump promises to deport a large number of people who entered the United States illegally. The Dominican Republic is expelling thousands of Haitians every week.
It is possible that a prime minister who is more palatable to the presidential council will be better able to improve security. Yet the chances look slim. People who hoped for better from Mr Conille should have recalled his first stint as prime minister in 2012. That lasted just four months. ■
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