Throughout most of Haitian history, two ruling classes have fought a bitter rivalry for power: the comprador (import/export) bourgeoisie vs. the grandon (big landowning class).
During the latter third of the 19th century, this competition pit the comprador’s Liberal Party (whose slogan was “power to the most competent”) against the grandon’s National Party (whose slogan was “the greatest good for the greatest number”).
In the late 20th century, this struggle was expressed through the Duvalier dictatorship, which until the 1980s defended grandon interests and was colloquially called the Macoute sector (due to its reliance on the brutal Tonton Macoute militia), ruling Haiti and intimidating the comprador interests, most of which supported the regime’s opposition, largely in exile.
Haiti’s semi-feudal mode of production, which flourished until the mid-1980s, has largely disintegrated under the onslaught of neoliberal reforms which have destroyed much of the previous economy based on small peasant production. Thus the old Comprador vs. Macoute formula is not quite the same as it was in the late 20th century, but it rhymes.
The 2025 representatives of the “enlightened bourgeoisie,” that is the comprador/finance sector capitalists who seek to make the Haitian neocolony a poor and humble but presentable junior “partner” of the U.S. empire, is represented, as Travis Ross has previously explained in Haïti Liberté, by an alliance of the Lavalas Family party (represented today in the Transitional Presidential Council or TPC by its current president Leslie Voltaire) with the Inite (Unity) sector (represented by Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé).
The 20th century Macoute sector finds its present day equivalent in an alliance of the Haitian Bald-Headed Party (PHTK, which has gone through at least four distinct versions since its 2011 founding), with a former opponent, the Democratic and Popular Sector (SDP) of André and Marjorie Michel. Like the Macoutes, the original PHTK regime (under President Michel Martelly from 2011-2016) was less squeamish about overt repressive violence and blatant corruption.
So, broadly and somewhat simplistically, today we see a contest between Lavalas/Inite vs. PHTK/SDP. In U.S. terms, think of them as Democrats vs. Republicans.
The masses must count on their own fighting organization, identify the fundamental enemy and its local and international allies, and engage in its own struggle for a true national liberation.
Both sectors are fundamentally subservient to U.S. imperialism, and both are part of the TPC, membership in which required acceptance of a foreign military occupation, expressly prohibited by the 1987 Haitian Constitution and founding father Jean-Jacques Dessalines.
Today’s modern Macoute sector is turning to the CARICOM countries in an effort to oust the neoliberal Lavalas/Inite clique from power. The December 21st Accord is the purest manifestation of the PHTK/SDP alliance. Its TPC representative is Louis Gérald Gilles, a former Lavalas Senator, but one of its most prominent spokesmen is André Michel. During a CARICOM meeting on Feb. 6, he declared the TPC dead and called for yet another transitional formula to reestablish Haiti as a democratic republic which holds elections and follows laws.
“We have demonstrated the TPC’s total failure and the impossibility of holding elections at the end of 2025,” he said. The TPC’s mission is to swear in a new elected government on Feb. 7, 2026.
What is to be gained by a Haitian politician so shamelessly denouncing to his foreign bosses a rival political sector in power? Show a little decency! Where is our sense of national sovereignty? Where is our patriotic pride? Of course, the security conditions do not allow the elections to be organized in Haiti in 2025, but to go and file a complaint with CARICOM, that is a shame!
The Haitian people can count neither on the TPC nor on Haiti’s political class. This week we saw a perfect example of its “dividing up the cake” with the appointment of general directors to autonomous state organizations such as OFNAC, ONA, CONATEL, AAN, etc.
Without any embarrassment, the government also announced this week the disbursement of 300 million gourdes ($4 million) to organize carnival (Mar. 2-4) in Haiti under the theme: “Ayiti kanpe!” [Haiti is standing!]
Of that 300 million gourde budget, 170 million gourdes will be allocated to organizing the national carnival in the northeastern town of Fort-Liberté. What indecency! This fund should be used to respond to the poor masses’ daily suffering and greater Port-au-Prince’s internally displaced.
The masses must count on their own fighting organization, identify the fundamental enemy and its local and international allies, and engage in its own struggle for a true national liberation.
Faced with global geopolitical challenges, it is necessary to strengthen the ideological training of vanguard activists in the struggle to build a socialist society that is fairer, more humane, and more sustainable. The planet’s preservation must be at the center of this project, reducing carbon emissions and bringing responsible management of natural resources are urgent actions to prepare for and respond to climate disasters, because Haiti, due to its geographical position, is vulnerable on the path of storms and hurricanes coming from the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico.
Also, our duty as a vanguard requires us to fight against economic and social inequalities by promoting a redistribution of national wealth according to the formula: “to each according to their needs, from each according to their abilities,” and by promoting a planned, collaborative, cooperative, and socialist economy for qualified economic growth based on improving living conditions and respecting ecological limits, and breaking with neoliberal policies and the idea of infinite, unbridled growth. It is time to prioritize human well-being and the planet’s preservation by measuring progress not by GDP or exports but through human and environmental indicators.
We need to rethink the Haitian education system to train generations capable of meeting the economic, social, and ecological challenges of the 21st century using new information and communication technologies and artificial intelligence. Technology must be at the service of humanity and help to improve the living conditions of workers and eliminate inequalities. We need to raise awareness among the proletarian classes of the value of solidarity, cooperation, and sustainability while promoting the internationalism of the workers’ struggle.
We need to build a political movement to also fight against the crazy arms race and promote peace in a capitalist world in decline, where unilateralism tries to cling on in the face of the a multi-polar world’s emergence.
We must also know how to exploit the political contradictions that develop between the political representatives of the former opposition’s neoliberal bourgeoisie and the politicians representing the PHTK/SDP sector; we must not politically support either one or the other. Both sectors serve the same master: Western imperialism. Their struggles for power may open a breach for the popular masses to advance their struggle in Haiti.
We must continue to denounce the dirty games of one against the other to help raise awareness among the masses and encourage their mobilization to overthrow this political system which follows the dictates of the former slave-owning nations, fight against a new occupation of Haiti, and restore the economic and political sovereignty of Jean Jacques Dessalines’ homeland.
No to the conversion of the multinational force for security support in Haiti!
No to the military occupation of Haiti.
No to the renewal of the mandate of the multinational force for security support in Haiti.
Progressive Haitians, let us unite for a national liberation struggle in Haiti.
Freedom or Death! Homeland or Death!
