Elections: Jean Marie Altéma Calls for Regulation of Digital Information

Digital strategy and governance specialist, Jean Marie Altéma, warns of a critical legal void in the draft Electoral Decree 2025: the absence of provisions regulating online disinformation, sponsored advertisements, and digital harassment targeting candidates. While nearly 2.65 million Haitians use social networks, these are becoming major spaces for electoral mobilization. Without control, Altéma asserts, the democratic process is exposed to manipulation, opaque financing, and cyberviolence. He identifies four main risks:

• manipulation of public opinion via rumors, deepfakes, and misleading content;
• opaque political financing, impossible to trace;
• digital harassment, particularly against women;
• loss of trust and risks of post-election tensions.

The expert advocates for integrating into the Electoral Decree 2025:
• transparency of sponsored messages (source, amount, targeting);
• sanctions for the deliberate dissemination of false information;
• the creation of a National Electoral Digital Monitoring Unit. These measures would aim, according to him, to strengthen the credibility of the election, protect candidates, and guarantee public access to reliable information. He calls on electoral authorities, decision-makers, media, and international partners to act quickly. “The next elections will also be played out on social networks. Not regulating them is leaving democracy defenseless,” he concludes.