Haiti's December elections postponed indefinitely, electoral council confirms

Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council has postponed the presidential and legislative elections that were scheduled for December 13, 2026, and has set no new date, citing security conditions and operational hurdles. The announcement makes official what the numbers already suggested: the machinery of a national vote exists on paper, but the country cannot yet move it safely.

The scale of the gap is in the registration figures. Just 759,257 voters have registered out of an estimated electorate of 6.5 million — roughly one eligible voter in eight — the UN's Carlos Ruiz Massieu told the Security Council on October 19. Registration itself continues, and the political field is crowded and ready: more than 35 parties and some 3,500 candidates have registered under the revised electoral decree.

Haiti has not held national elections since 2016, and the calendar has slipped before. Analysts say armed groups now decide how much of the country can organise a vote at all: their grip on roads, neighbourhoods and territory determines where registration can open, where ballots could move, and where counting could happen — and that grip is the main reason the date keeps moving.

The postponement leaves Haiti's transition without its planned exit. The elections were meant to hand power from interim authorities to an elected president and legislature; with no new date set, that handover now waits on the same question as everything else in the country — whether security can be restored enough for Haitians to vote.