After Frinel Joseph, the BNC Trio Raises the Stakes
Since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021, Haiti has sunk into a crisis where institutional simulation has replaced actual governance. The recent intervention by Louis Gérald Gilles, Smith Augustin, and Emmanuel Vertilaire—three members of the Presidential Transitional Council (CPT), all publicly implicated in the massive embezzlement scandal involving the National Credit Bank (BNC)—has revived a perverse logic: those allegedly involved in state pillaging now present themselves as defenders of legality. Their letter to CPT Coordinator Fritz Alphonse Jean, invoking the need for quorum and procedural deliberation (forum deliberandi), exemplifies a strategic use of legal formalism as a weapon of obstruction. Devoid of public legitimacy, these figures rely on the aesthetics of legality to justify their influence in a process that has long since lost its ethical bearings.
The cancellation of Tuesday’s Council of Ministers meeting, officially due to the absence of quorum, must be read within a broader context. Since 2021, both Cabinet meetings and sessions of the Superior Council of the National Police have multiplied—yet the nation remains in collapse. The so-called “lost territories” remain under gang control; citizens are killed daily by armed violence; corruption flourishes without restraint; and the state’s diplomatic apparatus has descended into disarray. Instead of strengthening governance, the proliferation of councils has largely served as cover for patronage appointments and intra-elite bargaining. In truth, the Haitian state has not been managed in the public interest (res publica administrari non potest). The repeated staging of executive rituals has produced no measurable benefit for the population.
This institutional deadlock has recently been denounced from within. In a public letter that broke ranks with the opaque practices of the CPT, former adviser Frinel Joseph directly condemned the Council’s dysfunction and the ethical vacuum that defines its operation. His criticism resonated as a rare act of lucidity in a sea of complicity, further highlighting the contradiction of figures like Gilles, Augustin, and Vertilaire asserting procedural authority while facing serious allegations. That such individuals would wield procedural technicalities to obstruct the workings of the executive only deepens the collective sense of cynicism and despair. Their invocation of quorum does not reflect a commitment to constitutional norms, but a cynical maneuver to preserve influence and evade accountability.
Even more disturbing is that those blocking executive function are precisely the ones who should be under judicial investigation. In jurisdictions such as France, Canada, or the United States, individuals implicated in such financial crimes (crimen peculatus) would have been swiftly removed from public office. Their influence on national decision-making would have been rendered null ipso facto. But in Haiti, those very actors use procedural arguments to further sabotage an already failing state. By invoking legality without legitimacy, they embody the inversion of constitutional order. What they offer is not governance, but its parody. Their continued presence on the CPT not only erodes public trust but reinforces the perception that the Republic is held hostage by its most unaccountable figures.
Thus, whether the Council of Ministers met or not on Tuesday is immaterial. The deeper question concerns the validity of the transition process itself. If this phase was intended to reestablish a framework of constitutional legitimacy, it is instead reinforcing the same logic of predation that has crippled public institutions for decades. Haiti’s administration is now functionally paralyzed, its diplomacy incoherent, and its executive authority hostage to private interests. In this light, the BNC trio’s letter does more than “raise the stakes”: it confirms that real power now lies not with those seeking to govern, but with those who know how to obstruct. And therein lies the tragedy of a Republic unguarded.
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