The mandate of almost all Haitian parliamentarians, who could not agree on the modalities of new elections in November, expired on Monday. Haitian President Jovenel Moïse officially noted the lapse of parliament in the process.
"At the executive level, we have no desire not to organize the elections in the country but we are in a fact situation," said Jovenel Moïse, whose country has been plunged into a serious crisis since Monday. months. The legislative and municipal elections which should have been held in November did not take place because the framework law for the organization of the polls was not approved by the parliament, where the majority was however won by Jovenel Moïse.
Governance by decree?
If the number of senators still in office today is debating on the Haitian political scene, the mandate of all the deputies is as expected expired on Monday. This situation gives the president the possibility of governing by decree, which the opposition and a majority of sectors of civil society denounce in advance by evoking "a dictatorial drift".
During 2019, these opponents did not stop demanding the resignation of Jovenel Moïse because of his involvement in a corruption scandal. Between September and December, this protest even led to the total paralysis of activities across the country, to the point that schools remained closed for more than two months.
A catastrophic economic context
This Monday, the president announced that he wanted to take advantage of the absence of legislative power to effect budgetary reallocations. By specifying the amount to the nearest gourde (the national currency), the Haitian president estimated that the departure of the parliamentarians constituted a budgetary saving of more than 16.3 million US dollars. "I made the decision, seeing this amount this morning, (…) that ten high schools in the country be built with this money," Jovenel Moïse told journalists, who did not have the opportunity to ask questions .
This presidential proposal comes in a catastrophic economic context. Parliamentarians having not approved a budget in the past two years, the Haitian state is currently operating on the renewal of the 2017-2018 budget.
But according to the IMF, the country experienced a growth rate of 1.5% in 2017 and inflation at 14.7%. Today, inflation has exceeded 20% and the economy has entered a recession with a reduction in national GDP of 1.2% for the year 2019.
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