Haiti Begins Preparing Polling Stations as Long-Delayed Elections Finally Take Shape

Haiti, December 4, 2025 – For the first time in nearly a decade, Haiti is taking concrete steps toward holding national elections — and the most visible sign came this week with confirmation that more than 1,300 polling centers are being readied across nine departments. After years of political paralysis and escalating gang rule, the preparation of voting sites is the clearest signal yet that Haiti may finally be inching back toward democratic governance.

According to Haitian electoral authorities, 1,309 voting centers have been identified and are now being assessed for accessibility, staffing, and security. These centers form the backbone of a new electoral plan that has been quietly but steadily advancing since early November, when officials submitted a draft elections calendar. That calendar marks August 30, 2026 as the date for Haiti’s first-round general elections — the first since 2016. A second round is tentatively set for December 6, 2026, with a new president expected to be sworn in on February 7, 2027, restoring the constitutional timeline that Haiti has missed for years.

The progress accelerated on December 2, 2025, when Haiti’s transitional presidential council formally adopted a new electoral law — a prerequisite for launching the process. International partners, including CARICOM, the United States, Canada, and the United Nations, have long pressed Haiti to move toward elections, but repeated security collapses made even basic preparations impossible.

The challenge now is enormous. The United Nations estimates that gangs currently control around 90 percent of Port-au-Prince, and violence continues in key areas targeted for polling. Attacks in regions like Artibonite — where voting centers are being prepared — highlight the fragile reality on the ground. Yet Haitian officials insist that stabilisation efforts led by the transitional government and international support missions will allow the election machinery to keep moving.

Still, the symbolism of seeing polling centers mapped, listed, and prepared cannot be overstated. For a population that has lived through presidential assassinations, mass displacement, gang takeovers, and repeated postponements, the simple act of preparing schools and buildings for voting feels like a long-overdue return to civic possibility.

Haiti is nowhere near ready to vote today — but for the first time in years, the infrastructure of democracy is being rebuilt, room by room, center by center.

Angle by Deandrea Hamilton. Built with ChatGPT (AI). Magnetic Media — CAPTURING LIFE.