The assassination of President Moïse created an immediate and acute power vacuum in a country that already lacked functioning democratic institutions. With no vice president, no president of the Senate, no parliament, and no functioning Supreme Court, the constitutional line of succession was effectively empty. The question of who had the right to govern Haiti became the subject of intense political conflict within hours of the assassination.
Two men claimed competing legitimacy as the appropriate transitional authority: Ariel Henry, a neurosurgeon and technocrat whom Moïse had appointed as prime minister just two days before his assassination — an appointment that had not yet been formally confirmed; and Claude Joseph, the outgoing prime minister who was serving in a caretaker capacity and who argued that he had the authority to govern pending a proper constitutional succession.
The Core Group of international ambassadors ultimately threw their support behind Ariel Henry, who was installed as prime minister and de facto head of government on July 20, 2021. The choice was made without any Haitian democratic process, relying entirely on international consensus — a fact that Haitian civil society organizations noted as itself a troubling indicator of how thoroughly Haiti’s own governance institutions had collapsed.
Henry’s assumption of power was immediately contested by political opponents, including some who argued he had connections to the assassination. These allegations, denied by Henry, would become a persistent source of political controversy and would eventually be cited in the charges that Haitian prosecutors brought against him years later.