Haiti's Gangs Seek Political Power Amid Humanitarian Crisis

In the normal course of events, a former police officer announcing the launch of a political party would barely be worth a two-line item on the news. But most former police officers are not Jimmy Chérizier, a Haitian gang leader and warlord better known by his alias ‘Barbecue.’ On January 1 of this year, Chérizier announced that the gang coalition he leads, Viv Ansanm, was going to become a political party.

By this, he did not mean that the coalition was going to down arms, renounce violence, and try to affect social change via the ballot box. Instead, the announcement signified something much larger: a desire by Chérizier to force his way into Haiti’s ruling class.

The Humanitarian Crisis and Viv Ansanm’s Occupation

For anyone with even the slightest knowledge of Haiti’s situation, the concept of a gang forming a legitimate political party likely sounds like parody. After all, Viv Ansanm is among the most brutal of the armed groups that have paralyzed the Caribbean nation, collapsing its government last March, and effectively placing most of the capital, Port-au-Prince, under a state of occupation. This occupation has triggered one of the western hemisphere’s worst humanitarian crises.

Last year, Haiti’s gangs killed over 5,600 people. The Small Wars Journal notes that this death toll is equivalent to an annual homicide rate of almost 48 per 100,000 inhabitants, representing a national record. To put that figure in perspective, a murder rate of 45 per 100,000 was enough for Ecuador last year to declare itself in a state of internal armed conflict.

Not only has Haiti exceeded that grim milestone, but it has also seen over a million of its citizens displaced by the ongoing violence. The anarchy has deteriorated to such a degree that the United Kingdom’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, James Kariuki, recently observed the severity of the situation. Kariuki noted that at least one Haitian was killed, kidnapped, or injured every hour as a result of gang violence in 2024.

As the leader of Viv Ansanm, Jimmy Chérizier has been a key driver of these horrors.

Political Elites and the Normalization of Armed Groups

Given the scale of the devastation, the reaction to Chérizier’s political ambitions was remarkable. Rather than a united show of defiance, some of Haiti’s elites seemed cautiously open to the idea of gangs entering the political sphere. On January 10, PHTK party leader and member of Haiti’s nine-member Transitional Presidential Council, Liné Balthazar, went on Magik 9 radio, where he suggested the council was in active negotiations with Viv Ansanm.

As InSight Crime reported, Balthazar implied that Viv Ansanm is involved in discussions over the council’s future alongside major political players. Furthermore, Balthazar suggested his party was open to an alliance with the gangs ahead of Haiti’s next elections, which are currently scheduled to take place in early 2026. Defending his controversial views, he claimed that the nation must stop its hypocrisy regarding the reality of its power structures.

Balthazar stated that there is a phenomenon of illegal armed groups in the country, and that leaders must act as adults and pragmatists to solve the problem. To say this caused a backlash would be a massive understatement. Although Chérizier has long tried to paint himself as a political figure—often comparing himself to Che Guevara and declaring he is leading a revolution—most of Haitian society views him as a mass murderer responsible for untold suffering.

Speaking to the Miami Herald, a lawyer for the December 21 Agreement movement, which is also represented on the Transitional Council, declared that there is no place at the negotiating table for Viv Ansanm. They are criminals and should be destroyed. Others pointed to known connections between the PHTK party and Haiti’s armed groups to explain away Balthazar’s bizarre statement.

Yet, despite the public outrage, it appears clear that at least some of the elites are already preparing for gangs to become recognized political players. A recent proposal submitted by several key parties to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) for reforming the Transitional Council even included a mention of which reform would be most acceptable to Viv Ansanm.

State Collapse and the Failures of the Transitional Council

All of these developments raise fascinating and disturbing questions. Not least among them is what it would mean if a gang that helped bring Haiti to its knees ultimately wound up determining its future. Even in the broader annals of gang and cartel crime, such an outcome would be highly unusual.

For all the damage they have done, and all the politicians and judges they have corrupted, gangs in Ecuador and Mexico remain a long way from helping decide the very shape of government. The cynical retort would be that, in Haiti’s case, gangs are already doing a significant portion of the governing. As the Global Initiative non-governmental organization wrote in a recent report, so much of Port-au-Prince is now a no-go zone to the Haitian state that gang leaders operate as judges and advisors in their fiefdoms, settling disputes and conflicts, and enforcing law and order.

Seen through the lens of realpolitik, acknowledging that Viv Ansanm and others will play a role in Haiti’s future is simply working with the reality on the ground. It is a reality the Haitian state is too weak and corrupted to change, even with outside backing. This dynamic explains why many Caribbean leaders who helped set up the Transitional Presidential Council last year initially argued for including figures like Chérizier—an idea that was ultimately vetoed by the United States and France.

The counterargument is that there has been nothing inevitable about Haiti’s increasing slide into chaos. Instead of being solely due to the strength of the gangs, blame can be heavily laid at the feet of an exceptionally corrupt political elite. When the United States and CARICOM helped establish the Transitional Council in April 2024, its tasks were clearly defined: prepare for much-delayed elections while also supporting the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support mission designed to defeat the gangs.

Instead, the nine-member Council spent the intervening months engaging in conflicts with the interim prime minister and allegedly lining their own pockets. According to the Miami Herald, three of the Council’s members used their newfound positions to try and extort $758,000 from the chairman of the National Bank of Credit. When confronted by the country’s Anti-Corruption Unit, the three officials refused to resign or answer a judge’s summons.

The result has been a Council too paralyzed by infighting to accomplish substantial work, alongside a corruption case that has dynamited its legitimacy in the eyes of most Haitians.

The Kenyan Mission Shortfalls and Unprecedented Massacres

Concurrently, the Kenyan-led mission has failed to make a meaningful dent in the gangs’ territorial control. Initially meant to comprise 2,500 officers, the intervention still boasts only about 800 personnel, after many countries that pledged assistance failed to follow through on their promises. The mission is chronically underfunded, facing a shortfall of approximately $500 million, and is burdened with equipment that frequently breaks down and is ill-suited for urban combat.

Had the intervention deployed in force and the Transitional Council acted in the public interest, Haiti might have begun 2025 by slowly regaining some security and stability. Instead, the failures of the Council and the policing mission have created a scenario in which elites are openly discussing an accommodation with the gangs to halt the violence. The sheer scale and brutality of this violence cannot be overstated.

The last few months have seen several massacres in Haiti that are shocking even by the gangs’ own grim standards. In October, the Gran Grif armed group attacked Pont-Sondé out of anger at locals for defying them, resulting in an estimated 115 deaths. Then, in December, a gang leader who believed elderly voodoo practitioners had caused his child to fall ill ordered a slaughter.

In that instance, over 200 people were murdered and dismembered, with their remains dumped in the ocean. Further detailing the horror are the appalling attacks on infrastructure. Armed groups sacked and burned the Bernard Mevs critical care hospital and destroyed vast swathes of agricultural land in the Artibonite department, actions that have helped push millions of citizens to the brink of starvation.

Expanding gang recruitment of children has also become a severe concern; a recent recruitment drive led UNICEF to estimate that children now make up half of all Haitian gang members.

Implications of a Criminal Political Class

The central question looking forward is not merely what the gangs have already done, but whether incorporating leaders like Chérizier into Haiti’s formal political structures will actually help bring about stability. It remains incredibly difficult to predict. While individual gang leaders might offer temporary peace in exchange for formalized power, Haiti’s criminal landscape is so heavily fragmented that it is hard to envision a scenario where all factions could be brought onboard.

Powerful as Viv Ansanm currently is, it is hardly the only armed group possessing the strength to paralyze the country. What appears far more likely is a formal codifying of the parasitic relationship that already existed between Haiti’s political elites and the armed groups they once clandestinely funded. Allowing gangs into the political sphere would make official what was previously kept strictly in the shadows.

Make no mistake, if Haiti’s gangs successfully turn themselves into legitimate political players, it will fundamentally redefine the narrative of what has happened in the Caribbean nation over the past few years. Rather than being viewed merely as a descent into unchecked anarchy, the violence might historically come to be viewed more as a brutal civil war—one in which the armed insurgents were ultimately able to force a political settlement highly favorable to themselves. Regardless of the final outcome, the suffering of ordinary Haitians seems destined to continue.

Betrayed by their own political class and endlessly preyed upon by criminals, the country’s civilians may now be forced to witness those directly responsible for their pain be officially rewarded for the destruction they have caused.

Sources

1. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article298345513.html
2. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/haiti/article298983815.html
3. https://smallwarsjournal.com/2025/01/24/last-chance-breaking-haitis-political-and-criminal-impasse/
4. https://insightcrime.org/news/haiti-violence-surges-gangs-expand-influence/
5. https://lenouvelliste.com/en/article/252445/leslie-voltaire-its-scandalous-that-democrats-want-to-work-with-the-gang-coalition-viv-ansanm
6. https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/investigations/2025/01/13/haiti-depth-why-kenya-led-security-mission-floundering
7. https://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Last-chance-Breaking-Haitis-political-and-criminal-impasse-GI-TOC-January-2025.pdf
8. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/16/overthrow-the-system-haiti-gang-leader-cherizier-seeks-revolution
9. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/10/haiti-gang-boss-kingpin-barbecue-jimmy-cherizier