The Provisional Electoral Council of Haiti (CEP) announced Wednesday that elections scheduled for December have been postponed indefinitely.
The statement did not indicate the exact reason for the postponement, but few Haitians expected the elections to be held on time, due to ongoing instability and rampant gang violence.
“Following consultations with political actors and in view of the adoption, in the Council of Ministers, on October 5, 2026, of the amendments made to the Electoral Decree of June 2, 2026, certain deadlines of the electoral process are being rescheduled,” the CEP said.
“This measure is intended in particular to allow candidates and the political structures concerned to have the necessary time to complete the formalities required under the legal and regulatory framework in force,” the statement added.
The CEP did not provide an estimated date for rescheduled elections, but said the plan would be “made public as soon as possible,” once the “technical and operational requirements of the process, as well as the conditions necessary for the proper conduct of the various stages” have been addressed.
Haiti has not held elections since 2016. The winner of the 2016 presidential election, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated at his home in July 2021. Executive power was then taken by Prime Minister Ariel Henry, until he was driven out of Haiti by gangsters and resigned under pressure in April 2024.
The government was subsequently run by a nine-member presidential transition council, which was wracked by infighting and allegations of corruption, while gang violence grew steadily worse. The council was dissolved in February 2026, leaving interim Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime with sole executive authority.
An agreement reached in April led to elections being scheduled for December 13, with a cutoff date of October 9 for candidate registration and other documentation to be completed. The cutoff date was extended to October 31 before the CEP canceled the election entirely.
In addition to the constant threat of violence in the streets, the election plan was assailed by various political factions in Haiti as unfair, arbitrary, or rigged. Detractors of Fils-Aime accused the interim prime minister of plotting to rig the election in favor of himself and his cronies.
A member of the CEP told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Wednesday that December 13 “no longer stands” as the election date, and the council is “working on a new timetable.”
The council member said that only 769,000 voters have been registered since July, far short of the 3-4 million voters needed to hold a reasonably comprehensive national election.
Haitians have been pessimistic about the election schedule for months. The Miami Herald found considerable skepticism among the populace in September, as voter registration lagged far behind schedule, the CEP reshuffled its leadership for the third time in two years, and international observers said it would be nearly impossible to hold a fair election amid the violent chaos of gang-infested Haiti.
The Miami Herald noted that large swaths of Haiti were completely inaccessible to election workers because they are controlled by heavily armed gangs, and gang violence has turned nearly 1.5 million Haitians into Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) – refugees in their own country who would have a very difficult time establishing residency or getting registered to vote.
No one who talked to the Herald seriously expected Haiti’s notoriously inaccurate voter rolls to be cleaned up in time for a December election.
