Political vacuum in Haiti deepens as senators' terms expire

Source: Associated Press

Political vacuum in Haiti deepens as senators’ terms expire

By DÁNICA COTO and EVENS SANON
January 10, 2023

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Haiti awoke Tuesday stripped of its last democratically elected institution — this time, its Senate — an alarming development that solidifies what some call a de facto dictatorship nominally in charge of a country wracked by gang violence.

While only 10 senators had been symbolically representing the nation’s 11 million people in recent years because Haiti had failed to hold legislative elections since October 2019, their terms expired overnight, leaving Haiti without a single lawmaker in its House or Senate amid a spiraling political crisis. Organized crime groups have been running virtually unchecked since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, who himself had been ruling by decree.

“It’s a very grim situation,” said Alex Dupuy, a Haitian-born sociologist at Wesleyan University, “one of the worst crises that Haiti has had since the Duvalier dictatorship.”

The bloody regime of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, who fled the country in 1986, marked the last time Haiti lacked elected officials.

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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/politics-haiti-united-states-government-florida-state-latin-america-36dad35dce439953e59af39a449206c0