Haiti Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé says a planned general election for August will almost certainly be postponed because of the continuing gang violence overwhelming the troubled Caribbean nation.
"It is clear that the security conditions are not met at the level for us to have elections in August," Fils-Aimé said in an interview broadcast Monday on Magik9 radio in Haiti and reported by Reuters.
"I would like for elections to happen by the end of the year," said Fils-Aimé, who said he did expect the country to have a new president in place by early February 2027.
Haiti’s government has pledged to hold a general election in late August and a runoff by early December.
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A record of at least 280 political parties had registered by a March deadline to participate in Haiti’s first general election in a decade. Gang violence has only worsened since President Jovenel Moïse was killed in July 2021 at his private residence. He was the last president to be elected in 2016.
"We are not going to hand an encyclopedia to the population to choose from," Fils-Aime said. "Choice is a good thing but too much choice is not necessarily what is needed. I would love for us to have elections with 10 to 15 presidential candidates."
Gang violence has displaced a record 1.4 million people in a country of nearly 12 million inhabitants, with armed men controlling an estimated 90% of Port-au-Prince, the capital, and seizing swaths of territory in the country’s central region.
The violence also has forced thousands of businesses and hundreds of schools to close.
More than 5,900 people were reported killed last year and more than 2,700 injured, according to U.N. statistics.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
