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Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Port-au-Prince this week, with plumes of black smoke from burning tires and flags seen in the capital city, as well as white clouds of tear gas. At least two journalists were injured, a witness told CNN.

"I heard people saying I'm a dictator, but I want to be clear; I have a mandate for five years and I will finish my term," Moise said in a televised speech on Sunday.

Moise has ruled by decree since letting the parliament's mandate expire in January 2020. "Jovenel Moise destroyed every institution, from the parliament to local government. It is clear what he wanted to do. Unfortunately, we have an international community who don't support the fight against this corrupt dictator," opposition leader and former senator Nenel Cassy told CNN.

Moise's office declined to comment directly for this story, instead referring questions to Haiti's ambassador to the US.

Haiti's opposition has called for a three day "general uprising" this weekend. It will be the latest in a succession of anti-government demonstrations that have marked Moise's term, fueled by anger over Haiti's foundering economy, a sweeping corruption scandal and surging criminal violence.

A president accused of dismantling democracy

Haiti's democratic institutions have been crippled under Moise, who has not organized parliamentary or local elections, leaving the legislative branch of government largely vacant and powerless. His new order for judges from Haiti's highest court to retire now deals a blow to the country's judicial branch.

"President Moise did not remove the judges. He only asked them to exercise their right to retire," Haiti's Ambassador to the US, Bocchit Edmond, told CNN.

Judge Jean Wilner Morin, President of the National Association of Haitian Judges, explains to CNN that the President has no constitutional authority to unilaterally retire a judge, or appoint a new one.

"One cannot remove a judge in the course of his term. It is impossible. Therefore the decision to remove three judges from the Supreme Court by the President of the Republic, the order given by the president, is an illegal and unconstitutional order."

Without a functioning legislature, though, who is left to challenge the move?

In the coming year, critics fear that yet another blow to Haiti's democracy could take the form of changes to the constitution, which Moise sees as his legacy project. The new constitution, aimed to further empower the presidency, will go to a referendum in April and only afterward will elections to fill parliamentary, mayoral and other posts follow.

"The new constitution will guarantee when a president is elected they can do the job they were elected to do," Mose said in his Sunday speech.

Backed by foreign support

Haiti's political opposition say that that Moise completed his constitutionally mandated five-year term on Sunday and is now illegally occupying his office. But the President argues that he deserves more time because although he was elected in 2016, he was only sworn in 2017.

A Constitutional Court could issue a definitive ruling on this. The problem, as Morin points out, is that such a court only exists in theory.

"Haiti's 1987 constitution provides for this constitutional court but it has never actually been created and that's why today we find ourselves in a situation where the president says his term ends in 2022 and the political opposition says it ends in 2021," he says.

"If (Moise) wants to stay in power, he must find a political consensus with other political actors and civil society," he added.

In the court's absence, Haiti's national bar association and its Superior Council of Judiciary Power (CSPJ) a powerful body that appoints, fires, and disciplines judges have sided with the opposition, in calling for Moise to step down.

Such support is key to Moise's continuation in office, said Nicole Phillips, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings and Universit de la Foundation Dr. Aristide (UNIFA) in Port-au-Prince.

She describes US endorsement of the president's stance, despite his erosion of democratic norms, as a short-sighted campaign to keep Haiti in stasis in the immediate term "as opposed to figuring out policies in the long term that will actually sustain democracy and justice in Haiti."

"The international bodies are not following Haitian constitutional experts and legal bodies in their interpretation," she said. "You have Haitian constitutional scholars as well as the CSPJ and the federal bar association who are making their interpretations and the international community doesn't care."

Without support from Haiti's powerful neighbor, efforts to form any transitional government will hold little clout while Moise retains control of the country's police and military.

Edmond, the ambassador, argues there would be nothing democratic about appointing a transitional government, and urges observers at home and abroad to wait for the next general elections to select a new president to take office in 2022.

"Transitional governments have never been useful to Haiti," he said. "It's really important to strengthen the democratic process, and to make sure that a democratically elected president is replaced by another democratically elected one."

But with an emboldened president, no functioning legislature and only a partial Supreme Court, the question is whether Haiti's shaky democracy can make it until then.

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Is there a democratic solution to Haiti's current crisis? - CNN

This is not even about Donald Trump any more. Its about a Republican party that has lost its way, forgotten its core values, and kicked American democracy in the guts.

Its about justice, common sense, and honour, and how they were trampled deep into the churned-up ground of Capitol Hill by a mob of liars and dissemblers who call themselves GOP senators.

Its about how a nation, most favoured on earth, that cast itself as a shining light in enveloping darkness discovered it had feet of clay and laws that did not stand.

Just imagine how this latest impeachment travesty which, despite its last-minute twists and turns, has resulted in acquittal is viewed in Pyongyang, Minsk, Damascus and other hangouts of dictators, autocrats and war criminals.

Myanmars generals, universally reviled for this months coup, might be forgiven for asking: why is your insurrection so much more excusable than ours?

Vladimir Putin, struggling to get past the Navalny conspiracy and Black Sea palace corruption scandal, has been handed a lifeline by Ted Cruz and the rest, abetted by Trumps third-choice hack lawyers.

If an American president can behave like this and get away with it, then whos to say what Putins mafia cronies get up to is so very bad? This is the Trumpists morally repugnant, relativist argument.

And talking of morality, where are those legions of God-fearing, Trump-worshipping Christian fundamentalists when you really need to draw a line between right and wrong? Praying for the second coming of Mike Pompeo, perhaps.

Xi Jinping is not a man who jokes a lot. Global domination is a serious business, after all. It takes a toll. But even Chinas big cheese must have cracked a smile as democracy took a beating and the world turned upside down.

Everyone likes a Houdini act. Trumps performance is the political equivalent of going over Niagara Falls in a barrel weighted down by redundant Fox News anchors.

We know about Chinas rise. But Americas fall?

Trump never respected the US constitution. His second impeachment has made a mockery of that hallowed text. Ironically, he claimed it was unconstitutional. Hes the expert.

Yet Senate Republicans did not have to follow him over the cliff. Where do they go from here? Who knows? To an all-night bar perhaps, slurping down Kentucky mint juleps in honour of Mitch McConnell.

Its about them now. Senior GOP leaders the Gain Over Principle party are discredited beyond redemption. With a handful of exceptions, they abandoned their sworn duty. They gave America the finger.

They should all be impeached, too. Except they would acquit themselves.

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Republicans have betrayed American democracy and boosted the world's dictators - The Guardian

After abuses of power often come opportunities for reform. The attack on the U.S. Capitol, spurred by President Trump's big lie about the election, highlights the importance of holding those responsible to account, shoring up institutional guardrails, and taking action to revitalize democracy.Impeachment, oversight, and criminal prosecution are all on the table. Landmark legislation to restore institutional checks against abuses of power, strengthen voting rights, and deter corruption are among the most urgent priorities for lawmakers in the coming months. Speaking with CNN senior political reporterNia-Malika Henderson, the co-chairs of the Brennan Center for Justice's National Task Force on Rule of Law and Democracy,Preet BhararaandChristine Todd Whitman, will joinMichael SteeleandMichael Waldmanto discuss the reforms needed to bolster American democracy.

Co-presented by the Brennan Center for Justice and The New York Public Library.

LIVE from NYPL is made possible by the support of Library patrons and friends, as well as by the continuing generosity of Celeste Bartos, Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos and Adam Bartos, and the Margaret and Herman Sokol Public Education Endowment Fund.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

Preet Bhararaserved as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017. Bharara oversaw the investigation and litigation of all criminal and civil cases and supervised an office of over 200 Assistant U.S. Attorneys, who handled cases involving terrorism, narcotics and arms trafficking, financial and healthcare fraud, cybercrime, public corruption, organized crime, and civil rights violations.The New York Timesdubbed Bharara one of "the nation's most aggressive and outspoken prosecutors." In 2017, Bharara joined the NYU School of Law faculty as a Distinguished Scholar in Residence. He is the co-founder of CAFE Studios and the host of CAFE's Stay Tuned with Preet, a podcast focused on issues of justice and fairness. Bharara graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and from Columbia Law School, where he was a member of the law review. He is the author ofaNew York Timesbestselling book,Doing Justice: A Prosecutor's Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law.

Nia-Malika Hendersonis a senior political reporter for CNN, reporting on politics, policies, and people shaping Washington. Henderson reports for the network's digital and television platforms, and regularly appears as a panelist for CNN'sInside Politics,The Situation Roomwith Wolf Blitzer andCNN Tonightwith Don Lemon. She also often serves as a fill-in anchor forInside Politics. Henderson graduated from Duke University with a bachelor's degree in literature and cultural anthropology and earned master's degrees from Yale University in American studies and Columbia University in journalism.

Michael Steeleis a political analyst for MSNBC and the host of theMichael Steele Podcast. When elected lieutenant governor of Maryland in 2003, Steele became the first African American elected to statewide office. He again made history when he was named chairman of the Republican National Committee in 2009. He is the author ofRight Now: A 12-Step Program for Defeating the Obama Agendaand coauthor ofThe Recovering Politicians Twelve Step Program to Survive Crisis. Born at Andrews Air Force Base in Prince Georges County, Maryland, Steele was raised in Washington, DC. Upon graduating from Johns Hopkins University, he entered the Order of St. Augustine, where studied for the priesthood. He is a graduate of Georgetown Law Center, an Aspen Institute Rodel Fellow in Public Leadership, and a University of Chicago Institute of Politics Fellow.

Michael Waldmanis the president of the Brennan Center for Justice. A constitutional lawyer and voting rights expert, Michael has ledthe Center's policymaking and litigation since 2005. He is the author ofThe Fight to Vote(2016), a history of the struggle to win voting rights for all citizens. Prior to leading the Center, Michael served as director of speechwriting for President Bill Clinton. He is a graduate of NYU School of Law and Columbia College.

Christine Todd Whitmanis President of the Whitman Strategy Group, a consulting firm specializing in environmental and energy issues. She served in the cabinet of President George W. Bush as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from 2001 to 2003, and was Governor of New Jersey from 1994 to 2001. During her time in government, she gained bipartisan support and was widely praised for championing common-sense environmental improvements. Gov. Whitman is involved in numerous national nonprofit organizations focused on legal and environmental causes, including the American Security Project, the National Institute for Civil Discourse, the Climate Leadership Council, and the National World War II Museum. She is a graduate of Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts.

This program will be streamed on Zoom and simulcast to YouTube. You must register with your email address in order to receive the link to participate. Please check your email shortly before the discussion to receive the link. Captions for this event will be provided.

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After the Insurrection: How to Build a More Resilient Democracy - brennancenter.org

There is some movement afoot in the Connecticut legislature to make voting easier permanently, not just during the pandemic. The matter is complicated by our state constitution, but one pattern holds depressingly clear. Here, as elsewhere, Republicans mainly oppose easier ballot access.

The idea that one of our two viable political parties has evolved into an anti-democratic institution- one that does not want free and fair elections with high voter turnout whose results are respected is almost too upsetting to contemplate. But as Republican machinations graduate from voter purges and computer-assisted gerrymandering to their congressional attempt to overthrow a national election, it is incumbent on those of us who would think clearly about America to cope with this reality. Global warming is no fun to think about either, but not thinking about it wont help.

A good first step in understanding our situation is to acknowledge that throughout human history, representative democracy with a wide voter base has hardly been the norm. We in this country have had the exquisite good fortune to be able to take it for granted until lately, but in the big picture its the exception not the rule.

After the USSR dissolved and the Berlin Wall came down, there was a triumphalist moment in political science when some academics argued that liberal democracy had clearly won the battle of ideas and would vanquish all competitors forthwith, but the end of history didnt quite happen. Ours is certainly not the only polity in which liberal democracy is endangered or has never arrived. There is nothing inevitable about a system like ours, and nothing indestructible about it once established.

The average human being has not, while evolving from other primates, developed an instinctual and deep-seated love of democracy. Realistically, we want what we want and need what we need, and tend to like a political dispensation that we think will satisfy our needs and wants. If we dont think fair elections with lots of people voting are going to deliver the results we want, we are not genetically programmed to say Oh well, I guess its for the best. Whether from the perspective of world history or of human behavior, there has never been any reason to be complacent about the continued existence of a system like ours.

In the case of the contemporary GOP, the turn against democracy is not especially mysterious. This is a minority party. A Pew Research Center study from October 2020 found that 29% of registered voters identified as Republican. Its an unsurprising result in terms of banner Republican policies: most Americans favor a womans right to choose, and the GOP isnt having it; most Americans understand about climate change, and the GOP basically denies it; most Americans are having a more or less hard time making ends meet, and the GOP likes the federal minimum wage where it is, at $7.25/hr. How does a party like that win?

Certainly there are many independent voters who vote Republican, but its worth remembering that of three GOP presidential victories this century, two were popular-vote losses. Gore got more votes than Bush in 2000, and Clinton got way more than Trump in 2016. She beat him by about as many votes as Bush beat Kerry by in 2004, and we did not consider that to be a close election. The GOP happens to benefit, in a huge and anti-democratic way, from the electoral college.

It benefits similarly from the structure and behavior of the Senate. A vote for a senator in bright-red Wyoming is 67.6 times as powerful as a vote for a senator in deep-blue California, because thats the population differential, and they each get two senators. Once theyre in, these minority-party senators thrive in a body in which plain-old majority rule is now a rare exception; it generally takes 60 votes to do anything.

The Republican party also benefits from some apparently natural voting (or non-voting) patterns. Young people tend not to vote Republican, but then again they tend not to vote at all. The same is true of poor people. White people are more likely to vote, and to vote Republican, than non-whites, but here the result is not especially natural. Selective voter suppression has been the norm throughout U.S. history, with a relatively brief pause while the Voting Rights Act had teeth.

With all of these advantages natural, unnatural, and happenstance they lost in 2020; Trump was just too repellent. So now the Republican party is against our elections. It wanted the right to put them aside. When the courts wouldnt do it, they tried it in Congress.

I dont think it makes sense to think of this as an aberration. The Republican party in America is not well-situated to win free and fair elections in which lots of people vote. They know it, and will probably continue to act accordingly. They dont seem to care what gets broken along the way.

This is what we face.

Eric W. Kuhn lives in Middletown.

CTViewpoints welcomes rebuttal or opposing views to this and all its commentaries. Read our guidelines andsubmit your commentary here.

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Opinion Why the GOP is now anti-democratic - The CT Mirror

Its been just over a month since a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, the culmination of unprecedented tactics to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The weeks between the election and the Jan. 6 riot tested the solidity of American democracy. Did it hold up? Will it continue to?

Penn Todayasked experts from disciplines across the University to share their thoughts on the state of our democracy. What follows is the second in a series launched on the Inauguration Day of Joseph R. Biden Jr., seeking insights on where democracy in the United States stands.

Diana Mutz, Samuel A. Stouffer Professor of Political Science and Communication, School of Arts & Sciences and Annenberg School for Communication

Immediately after any election, partisans who supported the losing candidate are full of reasons why it wasnt a legitimate outcome. Ive been studying this since the 90s, and even back then, people had strong beliefs post-election that their candidate lost unfairly. They werent the same kinds of accusations of impropriety we have now, but they still were accusations of impropriety: The opponent ran misleading advertisements, or bought the election using tainted corporate money, or voters were discouraged from voting by the long lines at the polls. With the 2020 election, whats different is that even political elites have endorsed the idea that the outcome was illegitimate in some way, and that traditionally does not happen.

It will be interesting to see whether the publics endorsement of illegitimacy changes over time. Right after an election, people are emotionally invested and theres a fair amount of sour grapes going on on the losing side. But six months later, how do they feel? We typically expect that sense of illegitimacy to dwindle, but is this year going to be different? I dont yet know.

In the past weve found that if the same party loses twice in a row, as when Obama was elected for sequential terms, the effect of losing on electoral legitimacy becomes stronger. The first time one party loses, theres a dip in that partys faith in the legitimacy of the electoral process. Its significant, but not enormous. Partisans can attribute the outcome to not having had the best candidate or perhaps not running the ideal campaign. But the second consecutive time they lose, theres a huge dip in the outcomes perceived legitimacy. Its almost as if partisans see a second loss as evidence of a conspiracy against them.

Whats odd about Trumps victory in 2016 was that it did not follow the traditional pattern in one important way: Despite the fact that Trump won that election, because he lost the popular vote he continued to promote conspiracy theories about an illegitimate electoral process. Thats the first time weve seen the winner promoting the idea that the electoral process is illegitimate.

One more thing I will say: This election demonstrates that turnout is not a good indicator of whether democracy is working well. We had record-setting turnout, but much of that occurred because people were angry and dissatisfied with how government was working, not because democracy was working smoothly.

Jalil Mustaffa Bishop, Vice-Provost Postdoctoral Scholar, Higher Education Division, Penn Graduate School of Education

We often think of education as being an engine toward that ideal of an inclusive democracy. My research shows that one limitation to building that greater democracy is student loan debt.

Student loan debt sits at the intersection of historic racism: a higher education system that is stratified along racial lines and a labor market that is underpaying and underemploying Black people. Yes, Black people have been able to finance access to higher education, but theyre often not able to leverage it, to get returns similar to their white counterparts. Instead, student loans function more as a type of debt trap that evolves into a kind of unpayable lifetime debt sentence.

Student loan debt is a racial injustice issue. When we look at its impact, we see that across income levels, across degree levels, Black people are experiencing the worst outcomes, not because theyre making bad choices or not understanding that the debt theyve borrowed is a loan, but because they are trying to use those loans to dig themselves out of a racial wealth gap created across generations of racism.

Communities that have been traditionally marginalized are those that rely the most on student loan debt and have to use their student loans to access our most low-performing and under-resourced higher ed institutions. They also go into a labor market thats paying less for their credentials than their white counterparts.

One key way for us to move forward toward a more inclusive democracy is to remove the idea of a debt-financed education, which means canceling all student loan debt. A full student loan debt cancellationwith assistance and relief for all borrowersis a way to start to imagine how higher education can move us closer to our ideals, how higher ed can become a public good that is central to a democracy that is equitable, inclusive, and accountable to its racial past.

Akira Drake Rodriguez, assistant professor,Department of City and Regional Planning,Stuart Weitzman School of Design

What happened on Jan. 6 was the culmination of things that weve been seeing both over the last four years and over the last several decades: majority backlash over minority progress.

It was all very surrealthis very visible, spatial reclamation of this symbol of democracy unfolding across multiple media, but also very business as usual in that we saw people hanging out in their hotels afterwards, along with the total avoidance by the public of what the real issues were even as it was happening.

What have we learned from that day? After George Floyd, we didnt have the conversations we were going to have, and we havent had the conversations about Trump and what the impact isa national moment of reckoning that hasnt yet happened. Theres this idea that we can get back to normal and things will be just like they were before, but no one will acknowledge that the way things were before are just as bad as they are now.

To move forward, we need a government thats not afraid to invest in and affirm the public sector, and we also need people who are willing to be uncomfortable. Those are things that are difficult, because we are a business as usual country, but they are not impossible. Things have regressed over the past four years, and now, with Biden, were making progress, but its not yet progressive.

In the next year, I also want to see people get healthy: Providing universal basic income, free health care, and meeting peoples basic needs will alleviate some of the pressures that inhibit us from functioning like a democracy.

Kermit Roosevelt, professor of law,University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School

Whats been increasingly evident to me recently is the ways in which our Constitution allows a minority to take and hold power. Weve all heard about how the Electoral College means that the loser of the popular vote can still win the presidency. What people dont talk about as much is that this is also true of Congress.

Because each state gets two senators, Wyoming is equal to California. So, senators representing a minority of the population could easily control the Senate. In the House of Representatives, partisan gerrymanders can allow a party that receives a minority of votes cast in the state to win a majority of congressional districts. And when you get to the judiciary, a popular votelosing president can nominate judges who are then confirmed by senators representing a minority of the population.

None of this would matter as much if the elements of our system that empower a minority didnt line up with a politically cohesive group. But they do: The Electoral College and the Senate favor low-population states, which tend to have significant rural populations, which tend to be white, which tend to be Republican. Add in partisan gerrymanders, and were very close to a situation in which a political party captures all three branches of the federal government despite consistently receiving fewer votes. Thats alarming for democracy.

Jennifer Pinto-Martin, Viola MacInnes Professor, School of Nursing and Perelman School of Medicine and Executive Director, Center for Public Health Initiatives

Democracy can affect the health of citizens in several ways, including reducing social disparities and income inequalities. Political institutions affect health through enacting universal health care coverage, and health policy can shape high-quality health care.

But does democracy lead to better health?

While existing data support this link, research continues to explore the mechanism underlying the association. A recent observational study in The Lancet assessing data from 170 countries from 1970 to 2015 demonstrated reduced mortality among those with democratic compared to autocratic governments. This was especially true for mortality causes affected by health care delivery infrastructure.

Additional evidence supporting this link comes from something called the Liberal Democracy Index, a cross-country correlation of life expectancy and an aggregate measure of democracy based on qualitative and quantitative assessment. In this index, more democratic regimes receive higher scores. A recent analysis showed a 12-year difference in life expectancyfrom 72 on the high end down to 60 on the otherbetween countries with higher and lower scores.

The idea that democracy is tied to better health is perhaps not surprising. Citizens demand better health care and governments respond. The authors of The Lancet piece point out that in a democracy, a government that fails to support health care can get voted out in favor of one that does. Autocratic governments do not face such consequence. So, there appears a robust correlation between population health outcomes and the strength of democratic institutions. Several studies have found that it also holds after controlling for other factors such as national income or human capital.

We need additional research to more thoroughly explore the causal pathway here. Clearly higher expenditure on public services and better public service delivery are important components. However, when we compare the 76-year life expectancy in the United States, a democratic society, to the 84-year life expectancy in Scandinavian countries, which are best described as social democracies, we can see that the influence extends beyond political structure to income inequality and other factors. Understanding all of the competing and complementary forces will enable us to develop effective policies that most effectively support the health of the public.

Jalil Mustaffa Bishopis Vice-Provost Postdoctoral Scholar and lecturer in the Higher Education Division of thePenn Graduate School of Education.With Penn alum Charles Davis, he coauthoredan NAACP reportreleased in October 2020,Legislation, Policy and the Black Student Debt Crisis: A Status Report on College Access, Equity, and Funding a Higher Education for the Black Public Good.

Diana Mutz is the Samuel A. Stouffer Professor of Political Science and Communication in the School of Arts & Sciences and Annenberg School for Communication. Her latest book, Winners and Losers: The Psychology of Foreign Trade is forthcoming in 2021 from Princeton University Press.

Jennifer Pinto-Martin is the Viola MacInnes/Independence Professor in the School of Nursing, a professor of epidemiology in the Perelman School of Medicine, executive director of the Center for Public Health Initiatives, and University Ombuds. She is also director of the Pennsylvania Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities Research and Epidemiology.

Akira Drake Rodriguezis an assistant professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning in the Stuart Weitzman School of Design. Her upcoming book Diverging Space for Deviants:The Politics of Atlantas Public Housing (University of Georgia Press 2021) explores how the politics of public housing planning and race in Atlanta created a politics of resistance within its public housing developments. She was recently awarded a grant from the Spencer Foundation to study critical participatory planning strategies in school facilities planning in Philadelphia.

Kermit Roosevelt is a professor of law in theUniversity of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. His books include Conflict of Laws (Foundation Press 2010) and Myth of Judicial Activism: Making Sense of Supreme Court Decisions (Yale 2006), as well as two novels.

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More thoughts on the state of American democracy | Penn Today - Penn Today