Rethinking Statelessness from Within discarded due to ‘irregularities’ and 600,000 votes cast in a nation of ten million. 125 Moïse’s reign saw economic crises, gang violence and corruption allegations, culminating in the postponement of the 2017 election and his assassination in 2021. 126 Since Moïse’s death, several acting presidents have presided, yet Haiti has held no elections since 2016. In fact, it is upsettingly reminiscent of Castor’s description of pre-US occupation of Haiti, which was preceded by ‘four ephemeral governments’ between 1913 and 1915 wherein ‘[n]o government was thereafter able to maintain itself in power for even a year’.127 Castor, in her reflections on this period, usefully highlights the historical roots of Haiti’s current crisis in terms of imperialist occupation and the undermining of state structures, 128 which feeds into the breakdown of functioning citizenship today. That is, the democratic breakdown in Haiti that I frame as indicative of de facto statelessness post-2016 is a direct result of the coloniality that has defined the nation’s history. Without the functional right to vote, I argue that the Haitian populace thusly falls into the de facto stateless. Arendt contended that the key to a fruitful existence as a political citizen is rooted in individuals’ ability to engage in the public realm.129 For her, the two key rights for realising the potential of every citizen are the ability to vote and run for office.130 Fruitful political participation is core to individuals’ fulfilment of their citizenship and national identity. According to Arendt, voting and running for office are the activities that effectuate one’s existence as a citizen as they enact ‘plurality, diversity, and mutual limitations’ that define politics proper.131 The right to vote is a ‘powerful symbol of inclusion’ and embodies Arendtian political engagement, because through voting, a government consisting of a ‘plurality of voices’ is created and individuals are able to engage in ‘political participation and public action’.132 By voting, individuals have an opportunity to shape their government to reflect themselves, representing a tangible instance of one’s actions being considered effective and significant.133 Arendt argues that without such rights, individuals can never fully enter ‘the political realm and [be] fully emancipated as a citizen’.134 Losing the right to vote deprives individuals of the ‘social contract that undergirds the tenets of most “democratic” nation-states’ and limits their impact on the communities within which they are situated. 135 Unable to influence the world around them, individuals without the right to vote endure a precarious existence, bound to the decisions of others, without a governmental avenue available to them to express their political interests. Like those who experience migratory statelessness and lose the protection of their home country, I argue that those in Haiti mirror this condition, in that they did not experience this protection 125 126 127 128 129 ibid. Roy and Labrador (n 23). Castor (n 20) 254. ibid 266. Jan Klabbers, ‘Possible Islands of Predictability: The Legal Thought of Hannah Arendt’ (2007) 20(1) Leiden Journal of International Law 1, 18. 130 Arendt, ‘Reflections on Little Rock’ (n 103) 237. 131 ibid 237; Hannah Arendt, Men in Dark Times (Harcourt Brace and Company 1968) 81. 132 Alison Kesby, The Right to Have Rights: Citizenship, Humanity, and International Law (Oxford University Press 2012) 10, 57. 133 ibid. 134 Arendt, The Human Condition (n 73) 217. 135 Benedicty (n 78) 12. 145