Senate (Haiti)

The Senate (French: Sénat) is the upper house of Haiti's bicameral legislature, the National Assembly. The lower house of the National Assembly is the Chamber of Deputies. The Senate consists of thirty seats, with three members from each of the ten administrative departments. Prior to the creation of the Nippes Department in 2003, there were twenty-seven seats. Senators are elected by popular vote to six-year terms, with one-third elected every two years. There are no term limits for Senators; they may be re-elected indefinitely.

After the elections of 2000, twenty-six of the then twenty-seven seats were held by Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas party. The Senate was not in session following the overthrow of Aristide's government in February 2004. An interim government was put in place following the rebellion, and the remaining Senators were not recognised during that time. The Senate was re-established and elections were held on 21 April 2006. The next elections were scheduled to occur in 2008, when one-third of the Senate seats was opened.

In 2015, the Senate was reduced to only 10 members and the chamber of deputies was closed because the elections to replace one-third of the senators and all of the deputies in 2013 were delayed indefinitely causing senators and deputies to finish their term in January 2015 without any replacement. This led to a dysfunctional National assembly. In the 2015 parliamentary elections these two-thirds were to be filled with new elected members, completing the 30 senators.