U.N. Security Council Members Warn Haiti’s Leaders That Time Is Running Out For Transition

Haiti has never been short on drama, but a recent U.N. Security Council meeting felt like a tense season finale where the commercial break never comes. 

Council members warned that time is running out to restore security and hold general elections before the transitional presidential council’s self-imposed deadline of Feb. 7, 2026 — the date the nine-member council is supposed to step down. 

Spoiler alert: no one’s announced a date for voting yet. 

But the prop department has counted ballots and stacked chairs just in case......just kidding! (I think)

“The transition clock is ticking. I am concerned that a steady path toward the restoration of democratic governance is yet to emerge,” said Carlos Ruiz Massieu, the U.N. Secretary-General’s special representative for Haiti. 

It’s an image that combines bureaucratic punctuality with the nervousness of anyone who’s ever watched a microwave count down an omelet. 

The difference is that, in Haiti, the countdown has real stakes: the first general election in almost a decade, security in the capital, and the lives of millions.

The logistics sound promising on paper. 

Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council has assessed voting centers in nine of the country’s 10 departments, identifying about 1,309 centers for roughly 6.2 million voters, and the projected price tag for round one is about $137 million. 

The term 'Departments' refer to Haiti's provinces.

More than 220 political parties have started registration, which proves two things: civic energy is alive, and Haitian politics has zero fear of variety. 

But the operational question is a different animal. How do you hold elections when gangs control an estimated 90% of Port-au-Prince and violence is surging across the country?

The U.N. numbers are brutal: 2,123 victims recorded from June 1 to Aug. 31, and the international community is watching a spike in killings across the Artibonite and Central departments. 

From January to June, the U.N. reported more than 3,100 people killed and roughly 1,100 injured.

Displacement is at record levels — about 1.4 million people forced from homes — and makeshift shelters have swelled from 142 in December to 238 this year. 

If this were a municipal planning meeting, the agenda would be three pages of emergency shelters and one lonely checkbox labeled “also find democracy.”

There is a tactical response on the table: a newly authorized gang suppression force with 5,550 personnel, a 12-month mandate and the power to arrest suspected gang members — a significant upgrade from the smaller U.N.-backed Kenyan police mission that was underfunded and understaffed. 

Timelines for deployment remain murky, which is diplomatic speak for “we’ll tell you when the plane lands.” 

Russia, meanwhile, raised concerns about the involvement of foreign mercenaries and decried civilian casualties in actions against gangs. 

Those civilian costs are real: a U.N. report noted 527 suspected gang members and 20 civilians, including 11 children, killed by drone operations from March 1 to Sept. 20, with another 28 civilians injured, nine of them children. 

That’s the kind of collateral damage that turns tactical wins into strategic headaches.

Washington’s U.N. ambassador Mike Waltz was blunt: “The international community must stand with Haiti as it takes back control of its country…The political class and private sector in Haiti must do its part as well in support of a democratically elected government.” 

In other words: aid, boots, money, and maybe a stiff memo to local elites. 

The U.K. representative echoed the call and added that sanctions should target not just gang foot soldiers but the economic and political enablers who grease their engines.

Satirically speaking, Haiti is juggling a handful of crises while being asked to host a national election like it’s a backyard barbecue — please bring your own security, ballots, and sense of safety. 

But beyond the irony lies a grim arithmetic: elections cost money, policing costs money, sheltering internally displaced people costs money, and every day without a functioning political timetable costs lives and erodes confidence.

So what’s the upshot? 

Haiti stands at a crossroads where promises, timelines and realities meet — and sometimes collide. 

The clock is ticking, the council is watching, and preparations are lurching forward even as violence surges. 

If democracy is going to return to Haiti in any meaningful way, it will take international resolve, rapid security gains that minimize civilian harm, and a political class willing to turn registration rolls into real ballots on a real day — before that Feb. 7 deadline becomes another well-intentioned calendar footnote.

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