Caribbean leaders said late Wednesday that embattled Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry has agreed to hold general elections by mid-2025 as the international community pushes to raise money for a foreign armed force to fight gang violence there. Members of the Caricom regional trade bloc stated at the end of a four-day summit in Guyana saying Henry agreed there is a need to hold elections and work with the opposition and civil society groups to achieve that goal.<\/p>\n
The statement said that all stakeholders in Haitian society, including Henry, will have to make concessions to allow for elections and the restoration of democracy in an impoverished country that has no elected officials in power. \u201cCaricom heads expressed their deep concern over the continued deterioration of the security, humanitarian and political situation and the continued delay in overcoming the political stalemate, which have blocked the possibility of free and fair elections,\u201d the statement bloc said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCaricom heads underlined the critical and immediate need for a clear political path forward which should be participatory and inclusive.\u201d An assessment team will be created by the US, Canada and the United Nations to help Haiti prepare for elections. A spokesman for Henry\u2019s office declined to comment. Henry was en route to Kenya after leaving Guyana, officials said. Henry has repeatedly pledged to hold elections ever since being sworn in as prime minister after the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Mo\u00efse, but he and other officials say gang violence has not allowed them to move forward on those promises.<\/p>\n
The situation in Haiti is \u201ctruly terrible,\u201d Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis said at the summit\u2019s closing news conference. \u201cHaiti is hemorrhaging. We are deeply concerned about the continued deterioration of the security situation.\u201d He said Caricom will soon host a meeting in Jamaica of key Haitian stakeholders as the region strives to find a political solution for the country.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a UN-backed deployment of a Kenyan police force to Haiti has faced legal obstacles in that East African nation, with a court ruling the plan unconstitutional.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Caribbean leaders said late Wednesday that embattled Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry has agreed to hold general elections by mid-2025\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":32397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[895,10572,10574,991,10573,9686,10571,10575,611,1490,344,95],"class_list":["post-32396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-canada","tag-caricom-regional-trade-bloc","tag-civil-unrest","tag-elections","tag-gang-violence","tag-haiti","tag-haitian-prime-minister-ariel-henry","tag-international-community","tag-poverty","tag-security","tag-un","tag-usa"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}