“I am grateful to you for the sacrifices made during these troubled times,” he said. “I am devastated by the enormous losses and suffering endured by the Haitian people during this crisis.”

Though Henry was the longest-serving prime minister in Haiti’s troubled political history, his tenure was marked by an unprecedented period of gang violence and turmoil, kidnappings and a spiraling humanitarian crisis, in which more than 5 million Haitians are going hungry. His inability to stem the violence and control the spread of gangs, which now control more than 80% of metropolitan Port-au-Prince, made him an unpopular figure inside the country and among Caribbean leaders, who brokered the new governing transition.

One overlooked achievement of his tenure: Haiti’s finances. The government increased revenue from the country’s ports by cracking down on corruption, and Haiti recently paid Venezuela $500 million toward its debt as part of negotiations to get the South American nation to erase nearly $2 billion borrowed as part of the Petrocaribe oil program.

Since January, more than 2,500 Haitians have been killed or injured, according to the U.N., the deadliest three months since the global body’s political office in Haiti began tracking gang-related deaths in 2021.

Henry was named prime minister by Moïse about two months before he was assassinated. Both men kept the nomination quiet and it wasn’t made public until days before Moïse’s slaying.

During his tenure, Henry was accused of having been involved in the president’s death because of a phone call from one of the suspects. But both the suspect, Joseph Félix Badio, and a Haitian judge investigating the assassination cleared him of any involvement.

The presidential council

Here are the names of the groups that have named members to the council, and their representatives on the panel:

—Collective of political parties of January 30. The alliance of political parties is also known by its Creole spelling Collectif and includes the party of former President Michel Martelly. The alliance’s representative is former Sen. Edgard LeBlanc Fils, 68, a co-founder of the Organization of the People in Struggle, a political party. An engineer, he was president of the Haitian Senate from 1995 to 2000 during the administration of President of René Préval.

—December 21 Agreement. The coalition that had backed Henry and imploded after his forced resignation named Louis Gérald Gilles, a former senator. Gilles is a former member of Fanmi Lavalas, the political party headed by former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In recent years, he has been close to Martelly’s Haitian Tèt Kale Party or PHTK party.

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