Haiti - Political battles and gang warfare to follow Moïse’s assassination

Haiti faced multiple crises before last week. The assassination of the country's president is likely to make things much worse.

One of the long term threats of strongman rule is that leaders consolidate power without building institutions or preparing successors. For all the problems that those leaders create while in office, their failure to prepare for the future means things often worsen when their terms in office inevitably end.

President Jovenel Moïse was corrupt, worked with gangs to commit violence against his political opponents and manipulated the political system to limit checks against him. None of that is to suggest that he deserved to be assassinated last week in Haiti. But Moise’s actions as president certainly explain how he developed so many political enemies and the problems Haiti now faces after his death.

At the most basic level, Haiti’s biggest problem in the coming months is converting the desires of its people into effective governance. The country has too many politicians and powerbrokers competing for their own interests and very few attempting to represent the broader population or fix the country’s challenges. It’s likely that one or several of those elites were behind the assassination of Moïse and others will compete now that he is gone. There are plenty of challenges including coronavirus, kidnappings, hunger and a lack of economic opportunities, but all of those challenges are connected to the most basic of problems with the political leadership in the country.

For that reason, no outside group should believe it can impose a solution on Haiti. It might be possible to provide technical assistance on health, security or economic issues. But ultimately, the Haitian people must have their problems solved by representative and inclusive local institutions, not imposed by self-interested Haitian elites or the international community. The international community should be particularly wary of unelected Haitian elites posing as the official representatives of the population.

Four things Haiti is likely to experience in the coming months

Significant disinformation. The intellectual author behind Moïse’s assassination intended to create confusion and controversy. Bringing in foreign mercenaries and striking right as prime ministers were set to switch has left a power vacuum and ensured a complicated transition.

Political infighting. No single individual has legitimacy. Some form of power sharing arrangement working towards new elections would be ideal, but self-interested politics mean that groups will compete from the start to win or consolidate control, not try to work towards representative democracy. 

A gang war. Even before Moïse’s death, pro-government and anti-government elites were signing up local gangs and militias to engage in a dirty war against each other. One local gang had even called for a revolution and armed action against government forces, though they do not appear to be the group that killed the president. This politicized gang violence is likely to increase in parallel to the new political battles.

A coronavirus wave. Haiti’s political and gang fights mean Haiti will have a hard time distributing vaccines and implementing other health safety measures, even if they are donated by the international community. With a mostly unvaccinated population, it seems quite likely that the coronavirus statistics are going to move in the wrong direction in the months to come. 

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I’m back to the usual newsletter schedule this week. Tomorrow’s newsletter will look at a regional angle on the Haiti situation.