Haiti's last elected senators have officially left office this week, as its people seek to escape from a humanitarian crisis and Canada sends military support.
The developments have raised fears for the future of democracy in an impoverished, crime-ravaged state that has not managed to hold a vote since 2016.
With not a single elected official left on the national stage as of Tuesday, and gangs engulfing the Caribbean nation, its very future looked uncertain 18 months after its last president,
Canada sends support
On Wednesday, Canada delivered armoured vehicles to help combat criminal gangs as Haiti faces a humanitarian crisis, the Canadian foreign ministry said.
Canadian military aircraft made the delivery to the Haitian National Police in the capital Port-au-Prince, it added.
Haitian gangs have seized control of much of the country since the assassination of Mr Moise, leading to routine gun battles with police.
Haitian Senator Patrice Dumont speaks during a press conference at the end of his mandate on 9 January, 2023 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Source: Getty / RICHARD PIERRIN/AFP
Ottawa has also sanctioned Haitians accused of gang ties, including a former president, two ex-prime ministers and three high-profile entrepreneurs.
Canada will continue to provide support but the Haitian crisis must be resolved domestically, said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was attending the North American Leaders' Summit along with United States President Joe Biden and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
"What is particularly important in this situation is that the Haitian people themselves be at the centre of the support, the building of stability, and the resolution of the crisis in Haiti right now."
Haitians flock for passports to reach the US
Meanwhile, Haitians seeking to escape from the poverty and despair are flocking to government offices hoping to get a passport and perhaps their ticket to life in America under a new US immigration program.
At the main migration office in Port-au-Prince, large crowds have meant that security officers kept the metal gates closed and only let people in one by one.
Under the new policy announced by Mr Biden, the United States will accept 30,000 people per month from Haiti and a handful of other countries mired in crisis - Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela - but on condition: they stay away from the overcrowded US border with Mexico and arrive by plane.
Haitians wait outside an immigration office to apply for a passport in Port-au-Prince on 10 January, 2023. Source: Getty / RICHARD PIERRIN/AFP
People applying for a passport must buy a stamp that costs the equivalent of about US$50 ($70) - a fortune in the poorest country in the Americas.
But the application process is slow and riddled with corruption, so people eager to get a passport more quickly often pay twice the standard fee to specialised agencies to cut through the red tape.
'Barely a democracy anymore'
Haiti's withering democracy has been a gradual process: the legislative branch effectively ceased to function back in January 2020, when all lower house deputies and two thirds of the National Assembly's upper chamber left their posts without successors to replace them.
"You can barely call it a democracy any more," said lawyer Samuel Madistin, "and this comes at a time when the state is losing control of the majority of its territory, 60 per cent of it, to armed gangs."
For Mr Madistin, Haiti "is a state which, in practical terms, no longer exists".
The assassination of Mr Moise by an armed commando squad in his private residence in July 2021 only amplified the deep political crisis in which the country was already mired because of the paralysis of public institutions.
Currently, it is Prime Minister Ariel Henry who helms the country, but having been appointed rather than elected, just 48 hours before the president's murder, his legitimacy is widely questioned.
The assassination of President Jovenel Moise only amplified the deep political crisis. Source: EPA / EPA/JEAN MARC HERVE ABELARD
Claims of stalled elections, international failure
Mr Madistin believes the Haitian Tèt Kale Party (PHTK), the party once led by Mr Moise, deliberately stalled on organising elections in the country, out of self interest.
But he adds: "The failure is also that of the international community and the United Nations, whose mission was to stabilise the country politically."
After 13 years of the UN Minustah mission, which deployed up to 9,000 blue helmets and more than 4,000 international police officers from 2004 to 2017, the UN has scaled down its presence in Haiti.
Reduced today to a political office of about 60 staff, the world body has nevertheless kept its mandate to "strengthen political stability and good governance".
That nobody is able today to effectively govern Haiti to pass laws does not particularly move the country's inhabitants, who are more immediately concerned by the twin threats of gang violence and extreme poverty.
"Citizens are not really interested in the problem of representation: their priority is security," notes Gedeon Jean, director of the Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights (CARDH).
During 2022 the civil society organisation recorded at least 857 kidnappings committed by armed gangs.
More surprisingly, perhaps, the country's spiral into lawlessness does not always top the agenda for politicians, either.
One of the senators whose term ended on Monday, Patrice Dumont, used his leaving press conference to expand on his accomplishments in parliament - and to denounce the waste of public money by his fellow lawmakers.
Parliament: 'A high place for corruption'
That lack of interest in politics has grown over the years as the list of scandals involving ministers, deputies or senators has grown ever longer - without Haiti's justice system taking any action.
More than 20 per cent of voters cast a ballot in the last polls the country managed to hold in late 2016.
"Parliament has become a high place for corruption: people cast votes in exchange for money, for management positions," said the director of CARDH.
"We had corrupt people in parliament, drug traffickers, people who were used for money laundering," Mr Jean added.
The latest legislature had fallen into disrepute even before its members began serving their term.
In January 2017, four days before he was due to be sworn in as senator, which would have granted him immunity, Guy Philippe, a former senior police officer and Moise ally, was arrested in Port-au-Prince.
Extradited the same day to Florida, he pleaded guilty and was later sentenced to nine years in prison for laundering money from drug trafficking.
In November 2022, several businessmen and politicians, including the outgoing Senate president Joseph Lambert, were sanctioned by the United States and Canada which accused them of ties to drug trafficking and organised crime.
"We need to think about injecting some morality into political life and cleaning up the electoral system," warned Mr Jean, "to prevent people from holding the next elections hostage with dirty money."
