Haiti Embarks on Another Rocky Political Transition

Critical Questions by Georges A. Fauriol and Mary Speck

Published February 9, 2026

While the media focuses on Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland, and Iran, the State Department has been quietly shaping an international response to the crisis in Haiti, anchored in the deployment of the Gang Suppression Force (GSF), a UN-supported military and police mission established last September and charged with defeating the gangs that control much of Port-au-Prince and large swaths of the countryside.

Recruiting, equipping, and financing the GSF has already begun, though the troops are not expected to start arriving until April 2026. Its deployment should be completed by October, according to Jack Christofides, a senior UN peacebuilding expert who is serving as the GSF special representative.

Meanwhile, as of February 7, 2026, Haiti has a new interim government led by Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé. He takes control from the outgoing Transitional Presidential Council (TPC), which concluded its term without having fulfilled its mandate to restore security and develop a plan leading to the country's first elections since 2016. While the new prime minister has the advantage of strong U.S. and international support, the ugly battle over his succession has left him politically exposed. The coming days and months will bring new governance and security challenges to a country already reeling from widespread gang violence and a severe humanitarian crisis.

Q1: What was the Transitional Presidential Council?

A1: The TPC was established under an April 3, 2024, accord among Haitian political parties and civil society leaders with the support of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the so-called "Core Group" of diplomatic actors, including the United States, Canada, France, the United Nations, and the Organization of American States. It created an interim government to replace the unpopular government of Ariel Henry, who became prime minster following the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

But the structure established-a rotating president chosen from among the TPC's nine members, who also appointed a prime minister-proved unstable and undisciplined, wracked by political infighting and accusations of corruption.

The TPC had two basic tasks: restore security and hold elections. The first depended on international support, which came in the form of the Kenya-led Multinational Security Mission (MSS). But the 1,000-member MSS never reached sufficient strength to combat the gangs, who have taken over much of Port-au-Prince and some rural areas, displacing about 1.4 million people. Nor was the MSS a combat force. Its mandate was limited to training and supporting the Haitian National Police, who were themselves outnumbered and outgunned by gangs equipped with high-caliber, military-style weaponry, often purchased illegally in the United States and smuggled into Haiti aboard cargo ships or over the country's land border with the Dominican Republic.

While the TPC had neither the authority nor the wherewithal to bolster the MSS (outside of somewhat opaque contracting with U.S. private security firms), it also failed to carry out its political mandate: putting Haiti on a path toward legitimate, democratically elected government. Under the April 3 agreement, the council was supposed to hold elections and turn over power to a new government by early 2026. To facilitate this process, it officially abandoned efforts to reform the 1987 constitution in October 2025, though it did appoint a Provisional Electoral Council, whose members finally published a staggered electoral calendar in December 2025. A first round presidential and legislative election is scheduled for August 30, 2026, followed by a second round in December. Local authorities in Haiti's 146 communes (municipalities) will also be elected in December 2026.

The TPC did not leave quietly when its mandate ended on February 7. Just nine days before the end of their term, five of the nine council members voted to remove Prime Minister Fils-Aimé from office. The vote put the council at odds with the U.S. government, which had developed a strong working relationship with the prime minister. The U.S. embassy in Haiti called the action "illegal" on social media, warning that "corrupt politicians who support violent gangs and sow terror in the country" would "pay a heavy price" (translated by the authors). In what was perceived in Haiti as retribution, the State Department also announced that it was revoking the visas of two council members and their immediate families.

The United States underscored this warning by sending three naval vessels, including a destroyer with guided missiles, to Haitian waters. In a statement posted on social media, the U.S. Embassy in Haiti said the deployment "reflected the United States' unwavering commitment to Haiti's security, stability, and brighter future."

Q2: What are the options for a new interim government?

A2: At issue is how Haiti will be governed until an elected government can take power. The United States, along with Canada and other core group members, seems committed to maintaining Fils-Aimé, a Haitian businessman, as the sole executive authority, thus avoiding the infighting that helped undermine the TPC. Members of the TPC asserted that under the April 3 agreement they were empowered to choose the prime minister and sign off on the next interim government. "Everyone is looking for a Haitian solution to the crisis, but when we start to find a Haitian solution to the crisis, the international community comes in with all its claws," said Leslie Voltaire, a former minister of education who serves on the council and voted to oust Fils-Aimé.

Neither the TPC nor Haiti's more than 200 registered political parties have been able to agree on what the country's interim government structure should look like. Although there is little agreement on who should lead any interim government, there is widespread opposition to concentrating executive power in a de facto prime minister, especially one from the country's business elite.

The most ambitious effort to build national consensus has been led by the Patriotic Congress for National Salvation, a coalition of academic and civil society organizations. Over the past 10 months, the congress has held regional and national conferences, conducted surveys, and convened more than a hundred bilateral meetings with political and civil society leaders both in Haiti and within the diaspora. In a February 2026 report about their findings, the congress concluded that "dual leadership"-i.e., maintenance of both a president and a prime minister-was "imperative, as it is widely demanded, in line with political tradition" (translated by the authors). It also called for a neutral, technocratic government with guarantees of transparency and accountability. Options included choosing a new president from the country's supreme court and reducing the TPC to three members, chosen from governmental oversight entities such as the superior court of auditors.

It is now up to Fils-Aimé to decide whether to rely largely on international support or form a more inclusive governing structure. Even critics of the TPC have urged the prime minister to dialogue with political and civil society actors. Otherwise the new prime minister, like his predecessor Ariel Henry, who was forced to resign in 2024, risks finding himself "without a shock absorber against political forces that envy his position," wrote Roberson Alphonse, a prominent Haitian journalist. "Haitian actors-and even institutions of the international community-will not give him a free pass."

Q3: When and how will elections be held?

A3: Even with broader political consensus, holding credible elections poses an enormous challenge. Over the past four decades-since Jean-Claude Duvalier fled in 1986, ending his family's 29-year dictatorship-Haiti has endured three military regimes, two U.S.-led interventions, and six interim governments. It has also suffered a series of electoral fiascos, characterized by delays, accusations of fraud, and violent protests.

The last election, held more than 10 years ago, was no exception. President Jovenel Moïse took office in 2016 in a repeat election that had been delayed for a year after initial results were thrown out amid allegations of widespread fraud. The country has been without an elected president since Moïse was assassinated in July 2021.

Political turmoil has fueled widespread mistrust in state institutions. A January 2025 survey by a consortium of civil society groups (with support from the National Democratic Institute, an affiliate of the National Endowment for Democracy) found that most respondents did not trust the TPC (52 percent) or the prime minister (51percent). Informal interviews by a researcher based in Haiti who is working with the authors suggest that distrust has deepened since then. The researcher spoke with 15 people in the communes of Delmas and Pétion-Ville, located within the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area. Only two of those interviewed said they trusted the prime minister and only one trusted the business elite.

The electoral campaign is now scheduled to start in May, just a month after the initial deployment of the GFS. This means that campaigning would start before the international force had fully launched its effort to "neutralize" the gangs. At least 23 communes are under the control or influence of gangs, according to the electoral authorities, who warned that holding elections depended on assuring there was "an acceptable security climate with protection for [electoral] council members, electoral workers and voters alike."

How to pay for the elections remains unclear. Haiti's cash-strapped government will need international assistance. The United Nations Development Program and the Organization of American States-plus a variety of Haitian and foreign NGOs-may offer budgetary and technical support. But key U.S. institutions with experience organizing elections in Haiti and other conflict-affected countries-such as the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, as well as institutions related to the National Endowment for Democracy, including the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute-so far seem to be playing little, if any, role. Overall, the Trump administration cuts have slashed democracy assistance budgets.

Q4: What are the objectives of U.S. policy?

A4: The baseline objective of U.S. policy is stability, characterized in a straightforward manner: forestall the collapse of the Haitian state. This connects directly to the U.S. support for Haitian elections later in 2026. More broadly, the Trump administration wants to curtail Haitian migration, including its controversial decision to terminate the temporary protected status that allows some 350,000 Haitians to live and work in the United States legally. (Temporary protected status for Haitians was scheduled to end February 3, though a federal appeals court ruled that the administration's early termination was illegal.)

While focused on security, the Trump administration remains steadfast against putting any U.S. boots on the ground (discounting the presence of U.S. military contractors). But the United States is the prime mover behind the creation of the GSF, which as of December had secured pledges of up to 7,500 troops, mostly from African countries, including Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia, as well as Bangladesh. Although the United States will not contribute forces, it is expected to provide much of the funding, as it did for the previous Kenya-led mission. Canada has also pledged financial support for both the GSF and regional efforts to stop maritime flows of illegal weapons and drugs.

The GSF will consist largely of military troops, who will work not only with Haitian police but also the country's small army, which includes about 1,500 soldiers. (In 2026 the United States will provide $5 million in "non-lethal assistance" to the Haitian Armed Forces for the first time since the 1990s, when the army was disbanded to prevent further military interference in politics. It was reestablished in 2017.) Although the GSF is not a traditional UN peacekeeping operation, the international body has already begun providing logistical and operational support, including through the deployment of a helicopter and other equipment.

Defeating the gangs is the United States' first priority, but guaranteeing stability will also require establishing a credible government capable of addressing the country's dire humanitarian and economic needs. The United Nations estimates that violence has displaced more than 1.4 million Haitians and that half the population is suffering from "acute levels of hunger," including more than 1.2 million children under age five. Poverty has intensified over six years of economic decline: An estimated 60 percent of Haiti's 12 million people survive on less than $1 per day.

Extension of U.S.-Haitian trade preferences-which the House of Representatives has now approved after allowing the HOPE/HELP program to expire in September 2025-could revive the country's small textile and apparel industry, but it won't address the urgent needs of Haiti's population. The U.S. government included Haiti among the countries targeted for assistance under the Global Fragility Act (GFA), a bipartisan measure signed into law by President Trump in 2019. The GFA was designed to coordinate support-including bilateral and multilateral aid plus private sector lending and investment-in conflict-affected states. Its purpose was to develop targeted, long-term strategies to prevent armed conflict from spreading, destabilizing not only individual countries but entire regions. But the GFA has now expired, along with much of the foreign assistance once provided by USAID.

That leaves the United States with few tools to help Haiti recover from political instability and grinding poverty. It also leaves Haiti vulnerable to the recurrent crises that have plagued the country for much of its history, sending hundreds of thousands of migrants into neighboring countries, including the United States.

The United States seems to be focusing almost exclusively on deployment of the GSF in line with the president's opposition to "nation-building." But the United States and other international donors will need to provide more than military support to ensure that the country can not only hold credible elections but also establish an accountable government capable of delivering basic services to its citizens, including a functional justice system, education, and healthcare. Otherwise, Haiti and its regional allies may be condemned to yet another cycle of instability and intervention.

Georges Fauriol is a senior associate (non-resident) with the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Mary Speck is a former senior advisor to the Latin America Program at the United States Institute of Peace.

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