Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at a Kenyan-led police force to Haiti, expected low public turnout in Iran’s legislative elections, and Russian dissident Alexei Navalny’s funeral.
Sign up to receive World Brief in your inbox every weekday.
Sign up to receive World Brief in your inbox every weekday.
“A Historic Duty”
Acting Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry and Kenyan President William Ruto signed a “reciprocal agreement” in Nairobi on Friday that will allow the deployment of around 1,000 Kenyan police officers to Port-au-Prince. The mission, backed by the United Nations and financed mostly by the United States, would see Kenyan police work with the Haitian National Police to protect hospitals, schools, airports, and other key infrastructure from criminal gangs. Henry and Ruto did not provide a timeline for deployment but said they are discussing plans to fast-track the process.
“We believe this is a historic duty because peace in Haiti is good for the world as a whole,” Ruto said. Gangs control around 80 percent of Port-au-Prince, and related violence killed more than 4,700 Haitians last year—an increase of nearly 120 percent from 2022.
Kenya’s High Court initially declared the deployment plan unconstitutional in January despite the U.N. Security Council approving the mission in October 2023. The court argued that foreign police deployments require a reciprocal agreement with the host country, which it said Haiti did not provide. Ruto vowed to appeal the decision, but Friday’s agreement may satisfy the court’s demands.
Still, rights groups condemned the Haiti mission, pointing to the Kenyan police force’s poor human rights record and past failures to fight terrorists and other criminals. Activists also argued that Henry did not have the legal right to sign Friday’s agreement because he is not an elected leader.
Henry took power in July 2021 following the assassination of then-President Jovenel Moïse. He pledged to hold elections by Feb. 7 of this year but has repeatedly delayed the vote. On Wednesday, Caribbean leaders attending the four-day Caribbean Community summit in Guyana announced that Henry agreed to hold general elections by mid-2025, with U.S., Canadian, and U.N. officials set to help Port-au-Prince prepare for the nationwide vote. “You can put as many police forces as possible in Haiti, [but] if there is no political solution, the problem will not be solved,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Henry’s trip to Kenya exacerbated ongoing gang violence back home. Gang leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, who heads the G9 Family and Allies group, announced a coordinated effort on Thursday to oust Henry from power. Under Chérizier’s direction, gang members set two police stations on fire, targeted a police academy, attacked Toussaint-Louverture International Airport, and briefly took students at State University of Haiti hostage. At least four police officers were killed and five others wounded.
“Haiti is hemorrhaging,” Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis said. “We are deeply concerned about the continued deterioration of the security situation.” The Bahamas—along with Benin, Jamaica, Bangladesh, Chad, and Barbados—have expressed their willingness to aid Kenya in its police deployment.
Today’s Most Read
What We’re Following
Low voter turnout. Iran held legislative elections on Friday with record-low predicted turnout. Only 41 percent of eligible Iranians were expected to vote compared to the previous record of 42.5 percent in 2020. However, with just 27 percent turnout after 10 hours of voting on Friday, Iranian officials announced that polling places would stay open an additional two hours in what is being seen as an attempt to boost the turnout.
The regime has traditionally relied on strong voter turnout figures to argue for its legitimacy and rebuff criticisms that the country’s elections are heavily predetermined and thus undemocratic. This year’s expected low turnout, particularly among young people, is a reflection of Iranians’ discontent with the hard-line regime, which intensified its crackdown on political dissent following the 2022 protest movement—one of the country’s biggest civil upheavals since the 1979 Iranian revolution.
Around 15,000 candidates competed for spots in Iran’s 290-seat parliament, and 144 people ran for the Assembly of Experts’ 88 seats. Any candidates opposed to the regime were previously disqualified from running, ensuring the outcome will favor the regime. More than 12,000 candidates in total were barred from running for parliamentary seats, and former moderate President Hassan Rouhani was prevented from competing for a seat in the Assembly of Experts. Although Tehran’s legislature (known as the Majlis) largely lacks policymaking power apart from rubber-stamping executive decisions, the next Assembly of Experts will have the responsibility to appoint Iran’s next supreme leader should the current one, the 84-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, die within the next eight years (the length of a term in the assembly).
Remembering Navalny. Thousands of Russians turned out to mourn late opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Friday to mark his funeral in Moscow. On Feb. 16, Navalny—a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin—died under mysterious circumstances in a penal colony where he was serving a 19-year prison sentence for charges widely seen as politically motivated. Western leaders and rights activists have accused Putin directly of ordering Navalny’s death, which Kremlin officials continue to deny.
Despite the Kremlin deploying a strong police presence to attempt to deter public demonstrations on Friday, large crowds gathered at the southern Moscow church where his funeral took place as well as at the cemetery where he was buried. Some participated in chants denouncing Putin and the war in Ukraine. Dozens of mourners were detained across Russia, including in Moscow and Novosibirsk. Meanwhile, the United States, European Union, and other major powers expressed their condolences and condemned Putin’s actions.
“With Navalny’s death, the time has come for the West to move beyond the idea that some Mandela-type figure will emerge in Russia,” kleptocracy expert Casey Michel argued in Foreign Policy. “Instead of placing its hopes in a singular future leader, the West will be far better served by facing the threats of Russian irredentism head-on, and finally focusing on eliminating Russian nationalism as a political force, once and for all.”
Let the competition commence. Campaign season for Mexico’s largest election in history kicked off on Friday. Millions of people are set to choose the nation’s president as well as 628 seats in Mexico’s legislature and thousands of local governing positions on June 2. In total, more than 20,000 spots across 32 jurisdictions are up for grabs. And pollsters predict Mexicans will elect a female president for the first time.
Candidates’ campaigns are likely to center on immigration and border security with the United States, worsening cartel violence, and high inflation. Yet political attacks continue to mar prospective lawmakers’ ambitions. Two people running for mayor in the city of Maravatío were killed within hours of each other on Monday, worrying locals of a repeat spate of election violence. Around 36 candidates were killed in the lead-up to Mexico’s 2021 national elections.
What in the World?
Why did Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh offer his resignation on Monday?
A. To challenge Mahmoud Abbas for the presidencyB. To protest the Palestinian Authority’s inaction over the Israel-Hamas warC. To enable reforms in the Palestinian AuthorityD. To convalesce from a recent illness
Odds and Ends
It’s rare to find a newspaper that is proudly inaccurate. Insert La Bougie du Sapeur, a satirical French publication that only publishes on Feb. 29. Named after a comic book figure born on leap day, the once-in-every-four-years tabloid upheld tradition on Thursday by publishing a slew of articles ranging from France no longer needing schools because of artificial intelligence to dismantling the Eiffel Tower and having IKEA create a manual for rebuilding it. Most of the paper’s revenue goes toward a charity that addresses developmental disorders.
And the Answer Is…
C. To enable reforms in the Palestinian Authority
As the Israel-Hamas war continues, FP’s Steven Simon and Aaron David Miller argue that significant change in the Middle East may not be so easy—or likely.
To take the rest of FP’s weekly international news quiz, click here, or sign up to be alerted when a new one is published.
The post Haiti, Kenya Approve Police Deployment Mission appeared first on Foreign Policy.