section_path: Background and origins
section_name: Background and origins
paragraph_text: Background and origins
  
  A Senate probe released in November 2017 concerning the 2008–2016 period (the René Préval and Michel Martelly administrations) revealed significant corruption had been funded with Venezuelan loans through the Petrocaribe program. With the departure of the United Nations force in 2017, the power vacuum was occupied by gangs, some of which had been fostered, financed, and even created by Martelly, famous for his 2008 Bandi légal album and his ties to right-wing elements in the police.
  
  A new round of protests broke out in February 2021 amid a dispute over Moïse's presidential term. The protesters claimed that Moïse's term officially ended on 7 February 2021 and demanded that he step down. Moïse said that Haitian presidents have five years to serve according to the constitution and that he had one more year to serve since he only became president in February 2017. Protesters also expressed concerns about the 2021 Haitian constitutional referendum, a referendum proposed by Moïse which would reportedly scrap the ban on consecutive presidential terms and enable Moïse to run again.
  
  From 2017 to 2021, with Haiti's political leadership deadlocked, public administration virtually shut down due to a lack of funding, and the judicial system in shambles, gangs seized political power through co-operative politicians, and economic control through financing by the business elite, protection rackets, kidnappings and murders.