AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Haiti, a country gripped by violence, widespread hunger and political chaos, is now facing even more uncertainty. A temporary governing body called the Transitional Presidential Council had been in charge since 2024, when Haiti's last prime minister resigned under enormous pressure from criminal gangs. But the council's mandate expired yesterday, raising the question of what comes next. Widlore Merancourt is the editor-in-chief of the Haitian news site AyiboPost. He's in the country's capital, Port-au-Prince, and joins us now. Good morning.
WIDLORE MERANCOURT: Good morning. Thanks for having me.
RASCOE: So who's running Haiti right now?
MERANCOURT: Well, technically, the country is being run by Mr. Alix Didier Fils-Aime. He was the prime minister since the end of 2024. He was appointed by the presidential council, and he himself and his cabinet are running the affairs of the government.
RASCOE: Does he have the support of the Haitian people?
MERANCOURT: That's a great question. I need to stress this, and it's an important point. The war initiative is lacking public support. The presidential council - they are implicated in credible and highly concerning corruption cases. They are implicated in all sorts of misappropriation of public funds, and people do not trust this prime minister. They don't trust him because he was not picked in the way that the constitution says prime minister should be picked. He is still in power because of this heavy support from the United States mainly but also from other members of the international community here in Haiti. I mean, Haitians are not in the front seat of the country's political scene these days. Last time we had election in this country was in 2016.
RASCOE: The presidential council, whose mandate just expired, was supposed to organize parliamentary and presidential elections to be held this summer. What must now happen for those elections to take place?
MERANCOURT: Well, for those election to take place, we need the same thing people were asking for. It's been since 2021, quite frankly, right? Better security climate. We need the population that is displaced today - historical numbers. We are talking about 1.5 million people displaced by the gang violence. Living in Port-au-Prince today is akin to playing Russian roulette with your life on a daily basis. You can go out and nothing happens. There is no shooting. It is also highly possible that you go out and you are kidnapped or killed. We had this Kenyan force. Around a thousand members came to the country by the end of 2024, and now we have mercenaries hired by the Haitian government. They are supposed to help the underequipped Haitian National Police to fight against the gangs, but they are so far not successful.
RASCOE: So I mean, that makes it sound like you're not expecting elections to take place anytime soon.
MERANCOURT: Well, as a voter, I'm not in the business of predicting the future, but up to 90% of the capital is under the influence of gangs. Not one single key road leading to Port-au-Prince people - that people use to conduct their affairs and their businesses is liberated. And also on top of that, you have to build the electoral system. All these challenges, it's very difficult to see how you can organize orderly, ethical elections that politicians and actors and stakeholders would accept, and you have another cycle of chaos 'cause people do not believe in the integrity of the process.
RASCOE: That's Widlore Merancourt, editor-in-chief of AyiboPost. Thank you so much for joining us.
MERANCOURT: Thank you for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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