A new government was formed in Haiti on Tuesday, tasked with restoring security and stability in the Caribbean nation that is ravaged by gang violence and political chaos.
The decree appointing members of the new cabinet was published in Haiti’s official gazette, two weeks after the country’s transitional government council named Garry Conille as interim prime minister. Conille served as Haiti’s premier for a short period in 2011-2012 and was until recently the regional director for the UN aid agency UNICEF. He will now also serve as minister of the interior.
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Dominique Dupuy, the current representative of Haiti to UNESCO, will be in charge of Foreign Affairs.
Taking over the finance ministry from Michel Patrick Boisvert is Princeton-educated Ketleen Florestal who will also lead the planning and international cooperation ministry, which oversees development.
Carlos Hercule, a lawyer who formerly headed the Port-au-Prince bar association along with serving as a member of an electoral council set to pave the way for Haiti’s next elections, will head the justice ministry, overseeing a paralyzed judicial system and the country’s embattled police force.
The defense ministry will be led by Jean Marc Berthier Antoine, who will oversee Haiti’s small army that was disbanded in 1995 and reinstated seven years ago.
The education and communications ministries, meanwhile, will be jointly taken over by Antoine Augustin.
Haiti, in serious turmoil for several years, is finalizing its transitional authorities who will seek to pave the way to the first elections since 2016, but their power appears limited in the face of well-armed and lawless gangs.
Former prime minister Ariel Henry, appointed just before the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, failed to address the nation’s spiraling troubles. He announced in early March that he would step down and hand executive power to the transitional council.
The job before Haiti’s new leaders is monumental as they confront the crises devastating the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Gang violence has long been widespread, but at the end of February armed groups launched coordinated attacks on strategic sites in the capital Port-au-Prince, saying they wanted to overthrow the unelected and unpopular Henry.
The violence has affected food security and humanitarian aid access, with much of the city in the hands of gangs accused of abuses including murder, rape, looting and kidnappings. Last year a UN-backed security force, to be led by Kenya, was promised as a boost to struggling Haitian police, but it has not yet been deployed. Kenya’s President William Ruto has said the deployment would likely start within a few weeks. Kenya is to send 1,000 officers for the mission alongside personnel from several other countries.
