PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti (CMC) — Haitian police are searching for the country’s Chief of Staff to the Minister of National Education, Ecclésiaste Thélémaque, who was kidnapped over the weekend.

Police said that the abduction took place as Thélémaque was returning home on Friday and that so far the kidnappers have not yet made any ransom demand.

Police also said that on Saturday, businessman Clifford Handal and his father escaped being kidnapped in Delmas 33, near the Peace Hospital.

The authorities said that armoured vehicle thwarted an attack by a group of heavily armed individuals with initial reports indicating that the assailants had opened fire repeatedly on the vehicle carrying the two men.

The police have also announced a series of measures taken by the High Command to strengthen security throughout the country where criminal gangs have taken control of a significant portion of the capital, Port a Prince.

The Nippes Departmental Directorate said that it has welcomed 30 new police officers from the 36th graduating class of the Haitian National Police (PNH) and that officials took the opportunity to inform the new officers of their assigned locations, particularly to police stations that need additional personnel.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé has reiterated his government’s commitment to strengthening the security, institutional and logistical conditions essential for the success of the electoral process as Haiti prepares to hold elections for the first time since 2016.

The prime minister, who chaired a high-level strategic session dedicated to the implementation of the electoral decree, assured that all necessary resources would be mobilised to provide the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) with the support required to fulfill its mission in the best interests of the nation.

The event over the weekend was held under the theme, “The Involvement of the Public Administration in the Application of the Electoral Decree”, and brought together members of the government, senior officials of the public administration, CEP President Jacques Desrosiers, as well as representatives of the national security forces, and international partners committed to supporting the democratic process.

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in Haiti, Carlos Ruiz Massieu, participated in this session and reiterated the United Nations’ support for the Haitian authorities in organising the elections.

The Government said that the initiative reflects its determination to ensure a coordinated mobilisation of the entire state apparatus, in strict compliance with constitutional and institutional prerogatives, to support the CEP in fulfilling its mission and to create the necessary conditions for holding free, credible, transparent elections that meet democratic requirements.

In his address, Fils-Aimé reaffirmed his government’s commitment to supporting the CEP in organising the upcoming general elections in Haiti.

He emphasised that while the organisation of elections falls constitutionally under the purview of the CEP, it is first and foremost a national responsibility that involves all state institutions and the nation’s vital forces.

“We understand that organising elections, although entrusted to the CEP, represents a mission of national importance that demands the firm, coordinated and responsible commitment of the entire state.

“Democracy is not built in isolation; it is the collective work of a people and its institutions, united around a common ambition: to rebuild national trust and guarantee the sovereign expression of the Haitian people,” Fils-Aimé said.

He urged all stakeholders to seize this historic moment with responsibility, dedication and patriotism, in order to create the necessary conditions for holding free, transparent, inclusive, and credible elections, capable of ushering in a new institutional beginning for the country.