The Interim Presidential Council ignores US warnings and announces plans to dismiss Prime Minister Alix Didier Filsueme.
Members of Haiti’s Transitional Presidential Council (TPC) have announced plans to dismiss Prime Minister Alix Didier Fissueme in defiance of US warnings.
Friday’s announcement deepens a standoff with Washington over the leadership of the crisis-stricken Caribbean nation. The country has repeatedly postponed elections due to escalating gang crime and instability.
Recommended stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
“We are the ones who appointed Didier Fils-Aimé in November 2024,” City Councilor Leslie Voltaire said at a press conference. “We are the ones who worked with him for a year and it is up to us to issue a new decree appointing a new prime minister, a new government and a new presidency.”
Five of the nine committee members voted to remove Fisueme and replace him within 30 days, according to several committee members. But as of late Friday, the vote had not yet been published in the country’s official gazette, a necessary step before the decision becomes legally effective.
The TPC was established in 2024 as the country’s highest executive body in response to a political crisis dating back to the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021. It quickly turned into infighting, questions over membership, and allegations of corruption.
After just six months in office, the council sacked Prime Minister Garry Conneill and elected Fils Emme to replace him.
Despite being tasked with creating a framework for federal elections, Congress ended up postponing a series of votes that were supposed to elect a new president by February.
Instead, a staged federal election is expected to begin in August. Meanwhile, parliamentary duties are scheduled to be dissolved on February 7th.
On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that he spoke with Fils-Eme and “stressed the importance of his continued tenure as Haiti’s prime minister to combat terrorist organizations and stabilize the island.”
Rubio added that the TPC “must be dissolved by February 7th, free from corrupt actors who seek to sabotage Haiti’s path to elected governance for their own interests.”
Additionally, the U.S. Embassy in Haiti issued multiple statements on social media in both French and Haitian Creole, warning that politicians could face significant costs.
“The United States will ensure that they pay a heavy price for the corrupt politicians who support gangs and cause trouble in the country,” the statement said, although some social media users interpreted the Creole expressions “final” or “final price” to imply even more dire consequences.
The series of harsh remarks is seen as a reflection of US President Donald Trump’s increasingly aggressive behavior in Latin America.
The escalation in tensions comes a day after the U.S. Embassy in Haiti warned that the U.S. government views “any effort by the unelected Interim Presidential Council to change the composition of the government as an effort to undermine Haiti’s security.”
The United States has not explicitly stated its issues with the council, but it previously imposed visa restrictions on unnamed Haitian officials for “supporting gangs and other criminal organizations and obstructing the Haitian government’s fight against terrorist organizations designated as foreign terrorist organizations.”
TPC member and economist Fritz Alphonse Jean later revealed that he had been subject to visa restrictions.
But Mr. Jean denied the U.S. claims, saying the board was under pressure to acquiesce to the wishes of both the U.S. and Canada.
The recent back-and-forth comes as more than 1.4 million Haitians remain internally displaced due to gang violence and millions continue to suffer from a lack of access to adequate food as transportation routes remain constricted.
Earlier this week, a United Nations report said an estimated 8,100 people were killed in violence in the country between January and November last year, a significant increase from the overall death toll of 5,600 in 2024.
Carlos Luis Mathieu, head of the United Nations Integration Office in Haiti (BINUH), said in a statement that the country has entered a “critical stage” in restoring democratic institutions that can adequately respond to the country’s predicament.
“Let me be clear: this country no longer has time to waste on protracted domestic struggles,” he said.
