Is Haiti’s political structure like the USA ?
rethugs vs dems?
I’m not well versed on the politics in Haiti but my understanding is that they have been in transition to a democracy but obviously have a ways to go before ever reaching that point. It is like republican and Democrat but it’s broken down further into more specific ideologies. You have social democracy, populism, socialism, conservatism, federalism, nationalism, libertarian, etc. There are dozens of parties but only 5 or 6 are popular and some are defunct.
Anyways, they have a parliament which is like congress and a Supreme Court and a prime minister instead of a Vice President.
My understanding of the situation is elections were originally set for October 2019 but there wasn’t a budget in place because they didn’t have a prime minister. In between all that, the opposition did not support Jovenel, anti-corruption protests, increase in violence, etc. So basically elections never happen and the terms for the majority of parliament expired (there’s 30 senators and 118 deputies but only 10 senators were left) so he had been ruling by decree since January 2020. He then appoints his people to cep who are supposed to be in charge of elections and to prepare a referendum to amend the constitution. The Supreme Court doesn’t swear these people in because it violated the constitution which states which sectors of the public are representative. Also the current constitution prohibits any amendments to the ruling charter itself. Jovenel goes ahead anyway. Later on that year, he decrees that elections won’t be held u til the referendum is voted on. Thus and other obstructions delay elections even further. February 2021, the Supreme Court appoints one of their judges as interim president because Jovenel’s 5 year term was up. He objects because of the whole 2015 election scandal, he believes his term started in 2017. He then retires 3 of the Supreme Court justices again which is against the constitution because they opposed him. He then nominates his own people so he can get the referendum passed. The referendum would abolish the senate, the prime minister position, and make the presidency 2 five year consecutive terms as well as other things to give him more power. Again, the process violated the constitution so his picks didn’t go through.
So now, the constitution states that parliament have to meet within 60 days to appoint an interim.
1. They have no parliament, only 10 senators
2. Claude Joseph, the interim prime minister who is currently acting as president was never ratified by parliament and had resigned.
3. Ariel Henry who was appointed prime minister has not been sworn in.
4. There are only 5 Supreme Court judges and no head. The guy who was the president of the Supreme Court who would be next in line for president died 2 weeks ago from COVID. The oldest member of the court heads the shadow government that named him interim president back in February.
I think I covered the gist of it and anyone feel free to make any corrections or additions.