The CEP Wants to Change Haiti’s Election Rules to Limit Candidates

On Apr. 24, 2026, Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) submitted a revised version of its electoral decree to the de facto interim government.

​The revisions include some controversial reforms to Haiti’s electoral rules, at least two of which threaten to exclude a majority of Haitians hoping to run for office.

​The electoral law changes would only tilt any future polling more steeply in favor of Haiti’s oligarchs and the comprador class, which in turn serve U.S. imperialism’s interests.

College degrees and membership size

One controversial revision includes “incentives to encourage the nomination of candidates with a university degree.”

​According to the Statista, in 2023, only 8% of Haitians had a college degree. This revision risks excluding most potential candidates for government posts.​

But the most controversial revision proposes that political parties must have a minimum of 30,000 members to participate in elections.

​There are currently over 300political parties and coalitions which have confirmed their status with Haiti’s Justice Ministry.

​While this proposal has been framed as an effort to reduce the number of single-candidate parties (often formed around a lone politician), it will also limit democratic inclusion. Smaller parties in the regions outside of Port-au-Prince may have smaller memberships that reflect the size of the local population rather than a lack of popular support.

​Also, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has been influencing some of Haiti’s political parties for over a year now through its “core institution” in Haiti, the National Democratic Institute (NDI). The exact nature and extent of this influence is unknown, as the NED no longer publishes the names of organizations and political parties it supports.

​Nonetheless, Washington is pumping in a lot of money through its “soft power” institutions. The NED has contributed$224,873 to its Strengthening Political Party Accountability and Civic Engagement program as well as $300,000 to the NDI for its Strengthening New Political Parties program.

​Claude Joseph, formerly President Jovenel Moïse’s interim Prime Minister, revealed that his party has received NDI support. In a post to X, Joseph celebrated a workshop provided by Jude Jeudy, the NDI’s representative in Haiti.​

Joseph and other party representatives have spent the past year or so traveling across Haiti, building a large membership base for his party, Les Engagés pour le Développement (The Committed to Development or EDE).

​Parties like EDE can likely surpass the 30,000 member threshold, while smaller, local parties would see themselves barred from participating in elections, which illustrates the advantage afforded to parties which accept funding and support from imperialist fronts like the NED.

​The aim of the CEP’s election law revision is clear: it wants to limit the number of political parties that can run in the election by favoring parties who can afford large, national campaigns to register the minimum 30,000 voters.

An unconstitutional condition proposed by an illegitimate government

In an interview with Réalité Info on May 12, 2026, lawyer Newton Louis Saint Juste criticized the CEP’s proposed reforms, pointing out that they have no legal basis. There is “no mention of [a 30,000 member minimum] in the Constitution or in legislation,” Saint Juste argued.

​The predictable consequence of the CEP’s new electoral decree becoming law is that many, if not most, of the 320 registered political parties will be unable to run in national elections.

​De facto Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé has ignored criticism of the CEP’s proposed electoral law changes. But recently, he expressed skepticism that the current electoral calendar could be respected. He blamed the delay (which is all but certain with only three months remaining) on insecurity and not on the undemocratic reforms his government is attempting to ram through the nine-member CEP.

​“It is clear that the security conditions are not met at the level for us to have elections in August,” Fils-Aimé told Franz Duval in a May 11 interview on Magik9 radio. The CEP had scheduled a first-round vote for Aug. 30 and a run-off vote for December.​

Fils-Aimé’s intention to postpone election, combined with the risk of the new CEP electoral decree becoming law, threaten the stability of his “National Pact for Stability and the Organization of Elections,” a political-class coalition which recognizes Fils-Aimé as the sole executive of Haiti’s corrupt, de facto government.

​The National Pact has set no end-date for Fils-Aimé’s regime, therefore, a delay in elections extends his mandate indefinitely.

​There is also squabbling over how much the elections will cost. On Apr. 20, Fils-Aimé and the National Pact vetoed a CEP proposed budget of $250 million to hold elections, a $200 million increase over what the last elections cost a decade ago.

​The National Pact was the result of closed-door negotiations on Feb. 21–22 at the Hotel Ritz Kinam in Pétion-Ville. The National Pact has the support of several prominent political parties. Fanmi Lavalas of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the Parti Haïtien Tèt Kale (PHTK) of former President Michel Martelly, the EDE, the December 21 Accord linked to former Prime Minister Ariel Henry, and the platform Democratic Resistance (RED) of Renald Lubérice, a former advisor to the late President Jovenel Moïse, were among the first six signatories.

​Other signatories include political coalitions such as COPPOS-Haiti, KOREPAD, and the Montana Accord. The website O-News 1ère provided a complete list of National Pact signatories as the Kinam negotiations closed on Feb. 22.

Security first

The first goal of Fils-Aimé’s government under the National Pact was to establish security so elections could be held. Fils-Aimé’s “security strategy” has centered on hiring Erik Prince’s Vectus Global group of about 200 mostly Salvadoran mercenaries to train Haitian National Police (PNH) agents, known as the “Task Force,” as well as members of the Marco Rubio-concocted Gang Suppression Force (GSF) to conduct an armored vehicle and explosive drone warfare campaignagainst popular neighborhoods. The result has been repeated, bloody massacres of innocent civilians in Port-au-Prince’s downtown quarters.

the de facto government, with no popular mandate or legitimacy, continues to sign lucrative, controversial, sweetheart contracts with Haiti’s oligarchs and shady international outfits

​Vectus Global has targeted and terrorized residents of popular neighborhoods controlled by armed groups affiliated with the Viv Ansanm (Live Together) alliance, headed by former policeman Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier.

​Fils-Aimé has adopted the U.S. government’s propaganda which labels Viv Ansanm as a “terrorist group.” This designation was contrived specifically to curtail any attempts at dialogue with neighborhood armed groups, although negotiations with them are supported by a growing number of Haitians to resolve the security crisis.

​The “terrorist” designation, eagerly adopted by certain charlatans on the fake “left,” has also opened the door for U.S. forces to station themselves on Haitian territory as part of Operation Southern Spear.

​The recently appointed mayor of Cité-Soleil, Daniel St-Hilaire, has also called for dialogue with armed groups. He confirmed that the municipal commission is already working on organizing a broader dialogue involving the various sectors of Cité Soleil.

“Hands off the Constitution” and the Institut Macaya

Fils-Aimé’s prediction that elections would be delayed was expressed hours after several political leaders and groups sent to CEP president Jacques Desrosiers an official correspondencedenouncing National Pact provisions which would grant Fils-Aimé presidential prerogatives and the power to modify the 1987 Constitution.

​The letter was signed by several trade union leaders, as well as Jean Paul Bastien, coordinator of Alternative Socialiste (ASO), which is a part of the Montana Accord coalition. Hérold Buteau, ASO’s founder, remains a spokesperson for the now-anemic liberal comprador front.

​Fils-Aimé, considered the new champion of Haiti’s oligarchs, may be attempting to revive the abandoned attempt to rewrite the constitution. In October 2025, Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council (CPT), which expired on Feb. 7, 2026, shelved its efforts to amend Haiti’s constitution.

​An analysis by The Canada Files showed that crucial amendments aimed at consolidating all executive power in the hands of Haiti’s President were virtually copy-pasted from a draft constitution created by the business group Institut Macaya.. Under Haiti’s current Constitution, executive power is divided between the President (head of State) and the Prime Minister (head of government).​

The Institut Macaya was founded by Reuven Bigio, son of Haiti’s wealthiest oligarch, Gilbert Bigio (who is also Israel’s honorary consul). Macaya’s members include other oligarchs such as Jean Luc Vorbe, Philippe Coles, and Joel Bonnefil.

​Fils-Aimé has direct ties to Macaya. Jake Johnston revealedlast summer that Fils-Aimé, before becoming Prime-Minster, sat on the board of Banque d’Union Haitienne (BUH) along with other Macaya members Christopher Handal and Olivier Barreau, who was the head of BUH at the time.

​Barreau is now CEO of the Alternative Insurance Company, where he employed the last CPT “president” Laurent Saint-Cyr, underlining the close relationships between Haiti’s oligarchs and halls of power.

​According to Johnston, Barreau stepped down from Macaya soon after its founding and “is expected to be a [Presidential] candidate whenever an election is eventually held.”

How to “elect” an anti-popular government

Ever since the Dec. 16, 1990 landslide election of former liberation theologian Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Washington, in league with Haiti’s bourgeoisie, has been working to make sure such a “malfunction” never happens again in Haiti.

​Today’s challenge is to hold elections that will install a government that is subservient to both Haiti’s oligarchs and Washington while generating enough popular participation to make them credible. The ongoing massacres of civilians in popular neighborhoods by the PNH, paramilitary groups, and Vectus Global mercenaries is not helping to instill trust in Fils-Aimé’s de facto government or the elections he is organizing. Attempts to legally or bureaucratically rig the polling’s rules are also backfiring.

​Meanwhile, the de facto government, with absolutely no popular mandate or legitimacy,  continues to sign lucrative, controversial, sweetheart contracts with Haiti’s oligarchs as well as with mercenary and shady international outfits, further alienating Haiti’s masses, who are mobilized to demand the re-opening of Port-au-Prince’s international airport.

​The world’s rocketing fuel costs and the worsening economic crisis, due to the U.S./Israeli war against Iran, is likely to make any attempts to more completely rig Haiti’s ever-receding elections very, very difficult.

Travis Ross is based in Montreal, Québec. He is also the co-editor of the Canada–Haiti Information Project. Travis has written for Haiti Liberté, Black Agenda Report, The Canada Files, and TruthOut. All his articles are collected on Substack. He can be reached on X.