Akash Sama­roo

Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos

While Cari­com lead­ers are hope­ful that a gen­er­al elec­tion can take place in Haiti on No­vem­ber 25, some be­lieve an end to the tur­moil in the Caribbean na­tion must take place first to fa­cil­i­tate a free and fair de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process. 

Speak­ing with the me­dia at the 48th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment in Bar­ba­dos yes­ter­day, Guyana Pres­i­dent Dr Mo­hamed Ir­faan Ali said, “Cari­com is unit­ed on the fact that we must do every­thing to en­sure that elec­tions are held. But be­fore elec­tions are held we have to do every­thing to en­sure that there is sta­bil­i­ty in terms of se­cu­ri­ty, the hu­man­i­tar­i­an side of things and yes, we are con­cerned as every­one else and we un­der­stand how im­por­tant these elec­tions are.” 

Ali said Haiti was up for dis­cus­sion when lead­ers cau­cused yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. 

In April 2024, Haiti Prime Min­is­ter Ariel Hen­ry re­signed and a new coun­cil was sworn in to lead the coun­try that is cur­rent­ly gripped by dead­ly gang vi­o­lence. 

Hen­ry stepped down af­ter armed gangs blocked his re­turn to Haiti. Most of the cap­i­tal, Port-au-Prince, is now un­der the con­trol of gangs. 

An elec­tion date of No­vem­ber 25, 2025, has been set in a step seen as in­te­gral to­wards restor­ing de­mo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance. 

Speak­ing at the open­ing of the Cari­com meet­ing on Wednes­day, UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­tónio Guter­res said he would re­quest that the Unit­ed Na­tions funds the ex­pens­es of a multi­na­tion­al force in Haiti. 

But Do­mini­ca Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Skeritt does not be­lieve the No­vem­ber 25 elec­tion date is fea­si­ble giv­en the high lev­els of vi­o­lence in Haiti. 

“From my per­son­al per­spec­tive, I do not see it hap­pen­ing un­less the re­sources are front-loaded and com­mit­ments made are ful­filled,” he said. 

Skeritt said Haiti should re­ceive the same aid from glob­al bod­ies that have been af­ford­ed to war-torn Ukraine. 

“And I raised that with the Pres­i­dent of the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion, I said look, the EU has to demon­strate the same lev­el of com­mit­ment it has demon­strat­ed to Ukraine to Haiti.

“France is part of the Eu­ro­pean Union and Haiti is a for­mer colony. So, the Eu­ro­pean Union it­self must be seen to be more up­front,” he added. 

Skeritt said the end goal is not elec­tions alone. 

“We are talk­ing about peo­ple don’t have ac­cess to health­care, peo­ple can­not go to their job places, stu­dents are not in school, Haiti’s econ­o­my is in sham­bles,” he said adding that elec­tions alone can­not save Haiti. 

Mean­while, St Vi­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves is hop­ing Guter­res is suc­cess­ful in en­list­ing help from the UN. 

“Whether the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil is go­ing to ac­cept his pro­pos­al is an­oth­er ques­tion but I rea­son­ably sus­pect that the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al would not go with a pro­pos­al to the Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil on a mat­ter so im­por­tant with­out hav­ing at least, some in­di­ca­tion from the per­ma­nent five that there’s a like­li­hood of its ac­cep­tance,” Gon­salves said. 

Gon­za­les said Haiti must have an en­vi­ron­ment to en­cour­age peo­ple to vote freely. 

“Be­cause to hold elec­tions, you have to have pub­lic meet­ings, peo­ple have to feel safe to at­tend the pub­lic meet­ings. And there has to be a pe­ri­od of rel­a­tive calm, so we will see how that evolves.” 

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne said he too hopes elec­tions can be held by No­vem­ber 25. 

“We’ll hope so. Cari­com cer­tain­ly gives all the sup­port it can to en­sure Haiti re­turns to sta­bil­i­ty in­clud­ing po­lit­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty.” 

On the open­ing day of the Cari­com con­fer­ence, Cari­com Chair and Bar­ba­dos PM Mia Mot­t­ley said the peo­ple of Haiti must be at the cen­tre of the mat­ters to be ad­dressed.