Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council said Tuesday that it has indefinitely postponed the first round of presidential and legislative elections that had been scheduled for December 13, 2026, citing gang violence, blocked roads, and administrative delays that have made a nationwide vote impossible to stage on the original calendar.
The council’s statement said the campaign period “originally scheduled” for the vote has been suspended and that a revised timetable “will be made public as soon as possible.” It did not announce a new election date. A council member speaking to Agence France-Presse on condition of anonymity confirmed that the December 13 date “no longer stands” and that officials are drafting another schedule.
What the calendar had promised
Authorities had published a two-round plan in late July: a first round on December 13, 2026, and a runoff on February 21, 2027. The ballot was meant to choose a president and fill seats in the Senate, Chamber of Deputies, departmental assemblies, and municipal governments. Haiti has not held national elections since 2016, and no elected president has replaced Jovenel Moïse since his assassination in 2021.
The council said Monday that it is rescheduling parts of the process after the cabinet adopted amendments to the June 2 electoral decree on October 5. Candidate registration online and document submissions have been extended to October 31, while voter registration continues. The council urged eligible citizens to keep enrolling even as campaign dates remain frozen.
Security and logistics
Organizers have struggled to open registration centers in municipalities controlled by armed groups and to move ballot materials when gangs threaten transport routes. Officials told reporters that fewer than 800,000 voters had registered in a country with roughly seven million people of voting age, underscoring how far preparations lagged behind the December target.
France 24 and other outlets reported that gang violence across Port-au-Prince and provincial towns has disrupted daily life for years, leaving transitional authorities without an elected mandate. International observers had treated the December date as a test of whether Haiti could exit that paralysis; the indefinite delay pushes the country toward a tenth year without a presidential election.
What happens next
Political parties that were preparing campaigns must now wait for a new framework the council says it will finalize with authorized actors. Opposition figures who had criticized the original timeline are likely to press for concrete security guarantees before any fresh date is announced. Aid groups warn that further slippage could deepen hunger and displacement in neighborhoods where gangs still control access to ports and main roads.
For Washington and Caribbean partners that have backed multinational security missions, the postponement removes a near-term anchor for legitimacy even as donor countries debate longer troop commitments. Until the council publishes a replacement calendar, Haiti’s government will continue to operate without a popularly elected head of state, and the December 13 vote will remain a deadline that slipped quietly off the books.