Author(s)

Romain Le-Cour-Grandmaison

Posted on 11 Nov 2026

Haiti has set a new date for its general elections, which are now set to take place on 18 July 2027. This is the third time the date has been postponed since 2025, with Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) making the previous two electoral calendars conditional on an ‘acceptable security climate’. But the debate over whether Haiti is safe enough to hold a vote obscures a second threat – the political-criminal networks that will influence the outcome, whenever it takes place.

The latest report by the UN Panel of Experts on Haiti highlights that the threat does not only come from gang leaders, but also from the political figures and businesspeople who arm, finance or protect them. Some of these individuals are subject to international sanctions, yet in October 2026 a revised electoral decree removed one of the provisions that prevented them from appearing on the ballot. The question, then, is not only when Haiti will vote, but who will protect the vote from these networks?

How votes are traded

Since the end of the Duvalier dictatorship in 1986, Haitian electoral cycles have operated like a violent marketplace, where political parties, economic elites and neighbourhood strongmen trade territories, voters and protection. Gangs control access to territory and the people who live there. They can mobilize voters, keep rivals out, and secure or disrupt polling areas. In return, politicians and business elites provide money, weapons and protection. The politicians elected through these arrangements then owe their seats to the same criminal actors the state is supposed to defeat.

Today, this structure remains in place, although the balance of power has shifted. Compared to the previous electoral cycle in 2016, gangs now control larger territories and influence more people. They also generate greater revenues, mainly through extortion. Gangs control strategic infrastructure such as ports and main roads, enabling them to bring the country almost to a standstill to exert pressure. However, they have not freed themselves from political and economic networks, with whom they continue to negotiate access to territory, revenue and, as the elections approach, political favours.

Local government shows how this works in practice. In Carrefour and Cité Soleil – neighbourhoods where gangs have been in control for years – the state is not completely absent: municipal administrations, for instance, still function there. But gangs are able to place their own people in key positions. In April 2025, a gang leader known as ‘Krisla’ brought Carrefour to a standstill with a strike, demanding that the government install new interim municipal authorities. And, according to the UN Panel, at least one member of the Cité Soleil municipal commission appointed in May 2026 is an active member of the Brooklyn gang, ties that ‘aim at consolidating territorial control and influencing upcoming elections’.

Voter registration presents another major challenge. By end of October, the CEP had registered some 888 800 voters, out of an estimated 7 million eligible citizens. The rate slowed from over 10 000 registrations per day between July and September to around 6 300 per day in October. Even if the process continued until election day, the register would only contain around 2.5 million people. Furthermore, there are no registration centres operating in Carrefour, Cité Soleil or Croix-des-Bouquets, which are home to nearly 680 000 citizens of voting age. The CEP has identified 23 neighbourhoods under gang influence, most of them in the West and Artibonite departments, which together account for 54 per cent of the electorate. It has not specified what level of security would enable voting in these areas, nor has it said whether voting will take place there at all.

Furthermore, recent reports from Cité Soleil suggest that gang leaders are mobilizing residents and arranging transport out of their territories so they can register to vote. This raises concerns that armed groups could influence not only who is able to register, but also how voter registration cards are subsequently used.

Excluding these areas would produce a result that does not reflect the views of a large share of the electorate. But holding the vote there under current conditions would allow criminal groups to become intermediaries in the electoral process and convert territorial control into political capital.

Safeguarding the vote

Electoral safeguards have long been fragile in Haiti, but the new electoral decree has weakened them further. Previously, candidates had to provide a certificate from the Bank of the Republic of Haiti attesting that they were neither bankrupt nor barred from banking, a document that individuals subject to foreign sanctions would find it difficult to obtain. The decree published in October removed this provision. Effectively, a political figure sanctioned by the United States, Canada or the European Union is no longer prevented from running for office. Furthermore, a ban linked to UN sanctions, which is still included in the decree, mainly targets gang leaders, who are unlikely to run for office.

However, one safeguard has been added: in August, the justice ministry instructed the financial intelligence unit to monitor electoral financing linked to criminal activity, and stipulated that large donations must go through the banking system. Like any filter, however, this will only be effective if the justice system can act on what it finds.

Candidate certification is therefore where much of the election will be decided, and the risks run in both directions. Weak vetting could allow political-criminal networks to place their candidates. Aggressive vetting, on the other hand, would allow those in power to exclude opponents under the same criteria.

The argument of judicial sovereignty, whereby foreign sanctions should not determine Haitian candidacy, must be taken seriously. However, sanctions rest on investigations into serious offences, ranging from drug and arms trafficking to supporting gangs and corruption. A significant proportion of Haiti’s political and economic elite find themselves under sanctions regimes, including former President Michel Martelly, sanctioned by the European Union and Canada for financing armed groups and by the United States for drug trafficking, and now a registered presidential candidate. The sanctions’ foreign origin cannot justify inaction – it is for Haiti’s financial intelligence unit, anti-corruption unit, Ministry of Justice and recently established specialized judicial units to examine these files. Doing so would not be a concession to foreign pressure, but rather the fullest exercise of Haiti’s judicial sovereignty.

The danger ahead lies not only in the potential violence that could prevent citizens from voting, but also in the criminal arrangements that could make results predictable. In a neighbourhood under criminal control, an incident-free vote would not amount to peace. Rather, it might merely signal that a deal has worked in the spirit of a ‘pax mafiosa’.

There is also reason to fear that competition for criminal and political support will be violent, and Haiti currently has no protocol for protecting candidates. The Haitian government and its foreign partners must prioritize building such a protocol alongside efforts to ensure the transparency – and legitimacy – of the upcoming elections.