Haitians are experiencing new hope of an imminent return to constitutional order, after several years of deep political crisis, which worsened after the assassination of president Jovenel Moïse in July 2021. On a trip to Paris, Leslie Voltaire, the president of the Conseil Présidentiel de Transition (CPT), a transitional council installed in April 2024, promised to organize general elections − the first since 2016 − before the end of the year.

"We hope to have a first round around November 15 and a second round at the beginning of January [2026], so that we have an elected government on February 7," Voltaire told Le Monde on Thursday, January 30, the last day of his three-day visit to France. The 75-year-old leader was reaffirming an announcement made the previous day in an interview broadcast on RFI and France 24, just after his meeting with President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysée Palace.

This is precisely the mission of the CPT, a nine-member body − including two observers − set up nine months ago, shortly after the resignation of Ariel Henry, the unpopular transitional prime minister. The interim leader, invested just after Moïse's assassination, had been ousted from power in March 2024, after several days of an explosion of violence orchestrated by gangs that sow terror in Haiti and control over 80% of Port-au-Prince, the country's capital.

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