ELECTORAL DECREE OF 2025: THE GREY AREAS OF A QUESTIONABLE FOUNDATIONAL TEXT

Meeting in session on Monday, December 1, 2025, the Council of Ministers, chaired by Laurent Saint-Cyr, coordinator of the Presidential Transitional Council (PTC), unanimously adopted the electoral decree submitted by the Provisional Electoral Council (PEC). The text was published the same day in Le Moniteur, Special No. 66. At first glance, the adoption of this decree might appear to be a decisive step forward in the process of returning to constitutional order. However, a careful reading of the document reveals several inconsistencies, omissions, and deviations that seriously question the sincerity, transparency, and even the legality of the approach. Three major deviations or observations deserve to be highlighted. First Deviation: A Decree That Seems to Ignore the PEC The electoral decree adopted by the PTC, following a session attended by four presidential advisors with deliberative votes: Smith Augustin, Louis Gérald Gilles, Emmanuel Vertilaire, and Laurent Saint-Cyr, as well as two other members with consultative votes, Frinel Joseph and Régine Abraham, poses a fundamental problem from its preamble. Indeed, no visa explicitly mentions the existence, role, or legal basis of the Provisional Electoral Council (PEC), which is nevertheless the constitutional institution responsible for organizing elections. This omission is, to say the least, troubling. Can an electoral decree reasonably be adopted without clearly affirming the legitimacy and centrality of the electoral body that originated it? Is this a simple drafting oversight or a deliberate choice aimed at weakening, or even marginalizing, the PEC in favor of the PTC? In a transitional context already marked by persistent institutional confusion, such an omission cannot be considered trivial. Second Deviation: A Unilateral and Opaque Modification of the Text Even more concerning, the published decree reportedly does not correspond to the text initially prepared and transmitted by the PEC to the PTC. According to consistent sources close to the Provisional Electoral Council, the document was substantially modified without the PEC being informed or consulted. It was only upon the publication of the decree in Le Moniteur that the PEC reportedly discovered the extent of the changes made to its draft. Such a practice constitutes a serious breach of the principles of institutional collaboration and administrative transparency. How can the credibility of the electoral process be guaranteed if the body responsible for organizing it is kept out of structuring decisions? This method raises an essential question: what is being sought to be hidden behind this opacity? Modifying an electoral text without consultation amounts to sowing the seeds of future political and legal contestation. Third Deviation: A Manifest Violation of the April 3, 2024 Agreement Finally, the 2025 electoral decree seems to dangerously deviate from the spirit and letter of the political agreement of April 3, 2024, the very foundation of the ongoing transition. Article 49 of this agreement is, however, unambiguous: members of the PTC, as well as those of the transitional government, cannot seek a mandate in the next elections. However, in practice, several members of the PTC and successive governments, those of Garry Conille and Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, have not concealed their electoral ambitions. Even more seriously, one of the presidential advisors recently publicly mentioned a possible candidacy for the presidency of the Republic. This situation constitutes not only a blatant violation of the April 3 agreement but also an infringement of the fundamental principle of ethical neutrality that should guide any political transition. A transition cannot be credible if its architects simultaneously become potential candidates. A Transition Nearing Its End, But Riddled with Deviations In truth, these three deviations are not the only ones that can be noted in the electoral decree published by a PTC whose mandate expires on February 7, 2026. A PTC which, for a large part of its existence, seemed to evolve far from its primary mission: to create the political, security, and institutional conditions for free, fair, and inclusive elections. By persisting in opacity, improvisation, and political arrangements, the transitional authority risks compromising the very objective it claims to serve. However, Haitian political history teaches us that no electoral process flawed at its source can produce lasting stability. Pierre Josué Agénor Cadet