Democracy, Populism, & Domestic Politics, Latin America & the Caribbean Haiti in turmoil

The assassination of Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse, earlier this month has sent the nation into deeper turmoil, raising fears of escalating political violence and uncertainty for the future. The Caribbean nation has a long history of strife in the 200 years since its enslaved people staged a revolt and established their own country. Since then, it has struggled under United States occupation in the early 20th century and a string of dictatorships and coups, to the devastating 2010 earthquake.

Penn Today spoke with Perry World House Visiting Fellow Henri-Paul Normandin, former Canadian ambassador to Haiti, to get his take on the situation and thoughts on where Haiti goes from here.

Some pundits have said the assassination of Jovenel Moïse is the culmination of years of political instability. What are your thoughts? 

I would not use the word culmination to describe the recent events. There certainly was political instability under the presidency of Jovenel Moïse, but it did not have to end this way, with his assassination. What happened was very bizarre, and we’re just beginning to understand how the assassination took place. We’re still in the dark, however, about who sponsored this and why. Everybody was stunned by the assassination.

During a decade, roughly from 2005 to 2015, there was a period of relative political stability in Haiti. In 2005, René Préval took office through democratic elections, and he went through his entire mandate. At the end of his term there was another election, and, while contested, it led to a relative peaceful transfer of power from Préval to the opposition candidate, Michel Martelly. That was an accomplishment in itself. There was another transition of power in 2017 to Moïse. So, in this period, we've seen two relatively democratic and peaceful transitions of power. I use the word ‘relative’ because the elections were chaotic and subject to controversy, accompanied by some violence in the streets.

This constitutional continuity and relative democratic stability were welcome, following the previous decades of dictatorship of the Duvaliers, father and son, and the chaotic years of Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

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