Recently, Jovenel Moïse, Haiti’s 53-year-old President, was assassinated at his private residence in Port-au-Prince early by unidentified gunmen.

• This incident has pushed the Caribbean nation, already battered by months-long protests, economic miseries and the COVID-19 outbreak, into further chaos.
• Haiti’s interim Prime Minister Joseph Claude Joseph said some of the attackers spoke Spanish, indicating that foreign mercenaries were involved.
• Haiti is a French- and Creole-speaking country.

Who was Jovenel Moïse?

Jovenel Moïse was a 48-year-old businessman and political neophyte when he was sworn in as president of Haiti in February 2017.

• The former banana producer inherited a nation in turmoil — one that had gone a year without an elected leader in place.
• Moïse promised a new beginning by strengthening institutions and ending corruption, and won the election in the first round itself.
• But under his administration, the political and economic situation in Haiti further deteriorated.

What is the situation in Haiti?

Haiti, the world’s first independent Black-led republic, after slaves successfully revolted against Napoleon Bonaparte’s forces in 1803, has a long, painful history of foreign interventions, coups, dictatorships and not-so-successful democratic experiments.

• In 2010, the country was battered by a devastating earthquake that killed at least 300,000 people.
• The country has struggled with political instability — along with dire poverty and crime — since the end of the brutal dictatorships of Francois and Jean-Claude Duvalier from 1957 to 1986.
• Criminal gangs this year have driven thousands of people from their homes, protesters demanding Moïse’s ouster in 2019 shut down much of the economy.
• The country has yet to begin vaccinating its 11 million people against the new coronavirus, which is surging.

Who is now in charge?

According to the Haitian Constitution, the head of the Supreme Court should temporarily take over the government if the President abruptly departs. But the Supreme Court President Rene Sylvestre died last month of COVID-19 and that position is still vacant.

• The acting prime minister Joseph had an interim role.
• Moïse was killed a day after he nominated Ariel Henry, a neurosurgeon, as Haiti’s new prime minister.

He had not been confirmed, however. The uncertainty could create more volatility ahead of general elections later this year.

Source: The Hindu / Indian Express