The Canada Caribbean Institute recently collaborated with Indiana University and Websder Corneille, Adjunct Lecturer at IU-CLACS who organized a webinar on the upcoming general election in Haiti. The April 30th, 2026 event featured IU-CLACS Director, Dr. Diana Ojeda and featured Dr. Robert Fatton (University of Virginia), Wolf Pamphile (Haiti Policy House) and Dr. Greg Beckett (University of Western Ontario).
In a post written for the CCI, Mr. Corneille provides an overview of the event.
Fair electoral process in Haiti will strengthen regional alignment
Three experts on Haitian politics and democracy discussed online on April 30th, 2026, the upcoming general election in Haiti and its geopolitical implications for the Americas and other global alliances such as the European Union, Taiwan and China. Welcomed by IU-CLACS’ current director, Dr. Diana Ojeda, the conversation engaged some 40 policymakers, researchers, civil society leaders, and students from Haiti, United States, Canada and France.
Years of instability takes a heavy toll on democratic leadership in Haiti and slows the country’s pathway to development like other regional neighbors. The nation hasn’t yet recovered from the assignation of its last president Jovenel Moise in 2021, a severe gang-related crisis plagued and endangered its most important infrastructures which further complicates the process of renewing its political establishment and elect a new head of state— a decade followed the last polls in 2016.
Uncertain, Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) maintains its efforts to coordinate this year-general election that sets the first round for August 30, with a runoff vote on Dec. 5. A tale that left doubted Dr. Robert Fatton (University of Virginia), Wolf Pamphile (Haiti Policy House) and Dr. Greg Beckett (University of Western Ontario), the three speakers that intervened at the webinar moderated by Websder Corneille (Indiana University Bloomington).
The Quest for Competence
Dr. Robert Fatton, Jr., Julia A. Cooper Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia, shares upfront his concerns about the CEP’s endeavors and capacity to organize fair and legitimate elections this year.
“The country is not fully ready and prepared to welcome legitimate polls”, he said, by adding that rushing with the process may enter the country into a deeper cycle of violence and instability.
For about a decade now, the country mired in a widespread gang violence and overwhelming humanitarian needs that waned its core infrastructures. Successive interim administrations have taken on the responsibility to govern as the country waits to hold elections.
Road to general election
In March, the actual government opened a 10-day registration period, which has seen an approval rate of 282 political parties to compete in the upcoming elections, confirmed by the CEP. But official candidates have yet to be announced, which further exacerbates doubt on maintaining the current timetable.
Other concerns have recently been raised around the budget of $250M USD proposed by the CEP and rejected by the actual Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé. “Two hundred fifty million dollars! That’s absurd! This is not an election for the United States”, he said, reported by The Haitian Times.
Erosion of trust in public service and institution
Looking at the CEP’s willingness to move forward with the process, Wolf Pamphile, M.A., policy analyst and founder and director of Haiti Policy House, a Washington, D.C.–based think tank focused on geopolitical issues specific to Haiti, points out an important factor that is sometimes left behind in the analytics of Haitian landscape: the erosion of trust in public instruction, which specially affects electoral participation and legitimacy in the country.
Although the phenomenon is not typical to Haiti— last year, for instance, the Federation of American Scientists alerted that American trust in government institutions is at historic lows; Canada is slightly moderates with 49% of Canadians reported high or moderately high trust in the federal government (OECD, 2023)—, but Mr. Pamphile suspects Haiti’s case might be an exceptional one.
“To get to elections, to get people to a place where they can trust the police, the government needs to make people feel safe in [their] own neighborhoods”, he said. He went on to stress that “if they want to even think about an election, in terms of justice, funding…. it all starts from trust [between the government, the people and the private section]”.
For Mr. Pamphile, the road to elections starts with stability, safety and protection for people who had fled countless neighborhoods to escape gang violence. Human rights organizations and the medias have reported in 2025 a total of “1.3 million people have been displaced across Haiti, 11% of the population. The North and South stand now disconnected — last refuges for those escaping the violence”, cited Inkstick.
Election to resort mass migration
Beyond domestic challenges, Haiti’s elections also carry significant regional consequences, particularly regarding immigration. Dr. Greg Beckett, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Western University in Ontario, stressed that:
“There’s somewhere between half a million to a million people along the border [Dominican Republic and Haiti] that are in a vague status. Many of them have no Haitian documents”. To his observation, the Haitian government will need to find a way for them to get represented in an inclusive and fairly electoral process.
He further added that “elections give the cover of stability for deportations, extraditions, sending migrants back instead of letting them stay [in the U.S. or in the Dominican Republic]”. Such push may convey a paradoxical tone: helping Haiti to stabilizing its democratic process to constraint displacement into U.S. and DR shores.
Audience reaction and “double doubt”
At the end of the presentations, audience members, such as Dr. Jeff M. Cadichon, a Haitian scholar in mental health-related and host of the Reframing Podcast and Dr. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, founder of the initiative of Lekòl Ayiti A | Toronto Haiti Summer School, engaged with the presenters in an invigorating discussion about the prospects of election in Haiti this year. Both of them were sceptic of the conditions that will lead to a fair and legitimate election, given the country’s conditions and insecurity, and its history with tainted elections.
The webinar has been collaboratively organized by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) at Indiana University Bloomington, and co-supported by Haiti Policy House, the Canada-Caribbean Institute (CCI) and the Haitian Creole Language and Culture Program.
Websder Corneille, Adjunct Lecturer at IU-CLACS
The video recording of the event can be found on the CCI You Tube channel.