Haiti moves constitutional referendum to September

Reuters | Haiti will hold a constitutional referendum on September 26, the same date as presidential and legislative elections, authorities said, after postponing the date twice in part because of the pandemic, an official calendar showed Monday.

Political tensions in the Caribbean nation have been running high in recent months and Haitians have expressed fear of violence going to the polls.

Elections were scheduled for September 19. Postponing the referendum was done to give the health ministry time to deal with the COVID-19 crisis, Guylande Mesadieu, the president of the electoral board said in an interview.

The electoral council said in a statement that the country will implement health measures to curb the spread of the pandemic so that Haitians could cast their votes safely.

Municipal and local elections have been scheduled for January 16, 2022, the calendar also showed.

It is not clear what the constitutional referendum will entail but President Jovenel Moïse has previously said the powers of the president needed to be strengthened to break a “decades-long cycle of political crises”.

The presidency was weakened in Haiti’s 1987 Magna Carta.

Haitians mistrusted strong figureheads in the wake of the Duvalier family dictatorship notorious for human rights abuses and corruption.