afp/epd | In Haiti, the Presidential Council, which has been in office since 2024, has resigned from its mandate. As the daily newspaper “Le Nouvelliste” reported, the President of the Presidential Council, Laurent Saint-Cyr, handed over the official duties to the now sole Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé on Saturday (local time). The nine-member council was supposed to hold general elections in violent Haiti, but failed.
After the transfer of power to Fils-Aimé, the US Embassy said in a statement published on social networks that it was ready to work with the head of government in stabilizing the country and organizing elections. Shortly before, the US had sent a warship and two US Coast Guard boats to the waters off the Haitian capital, which is largely controlled by gangs.
Escalating gang violence
Meanwhile, a new multinational security mission is preparing to deploy to the country. It is intended to support the Haitian security forces in the fight against gangs. Diego Da Rin, an expert at the non-governmental organization International Crisis Group, stressed that the countries involved in this mission wanted to be sure that they were “working with a government whose legitimacy is unquestioned.”
Haiti is through escalating gang violence and a deep economic crisis embossed. The top one humanitarian officers of the United Nations in the Caribbean country, Nicole Boni Kouassi, said Friday that greater international funding was needed “to preserve the lives and dignity of all Haitians and to maintain the hope of younger generations.”
General elections in the Caribbean nation are currently scheduled for August 30, but few Haitians believe that is a realistic goal given the ongoing violence.
Grassing Bandengewalt
The nine-member Presidential Council or Transitional Council was founded in April 2024. According to its mandate, the body was supposed to exercise special presidential powers until the inauguration of a new elected president, stabilize the security situation and pave the way for elections. Over the past two years, however, the council has failed to curb rampant gang violence.
The 54-year-old businessman Fils-Aimé now faces the difficult task of organizing elections. Faced with fears of a political vacuum, US President Donald Trump’s government pledged its support to Fils-Aimé.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized the importance of Fils-Aimé’s uninterrupted term as head of Haiti’s government “in the fight against terrorist gangs and for the stabilization of the island.” The US also imposed sanctions on two council members and a minister whom it accused of supporting gangs.
No elections since 2016
Haiti has been suffering for years political instability, economic hardship and violence. The assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021 plunged the Caribbean state, which was already characterized by crime and great poverty, into an even deeper crisis. There have been no elections in Haiti since 2016.
Recently, armed gang violence has increased significantly. Criminal gangs now control 90 percent of the capital Port-au-Prince and, according to the UN, they killed almost 6,000 people in 2025.
The United States sent three warships to Haiti in recent days. The “USS Stockdale”, the “USCGC Stone” and the “USCGC Diligence” entered the Bay of Port-au-Prince to “demonstrate the United States’ unwavering commitment to the security, stability and a better future of Haiti,” said the US Embassy in Haiti on Tuesday in the online service X.
The fleet was sent on the instructions of US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as part of “Operation Southern Spear”. This is a US military operation against alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific, in which more than 100 people have been killed in attacks on boats.