No one saw Jovenel Moïse coming. Five years ago he was an unknown plantain exporter in northern Haiti, plucked from obscurity to succeed (and shield from potential corruption charges) Haiti’s outgoing proto-Trumpian President Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly. He then shocked pretty much everyone by going farther than his flashier political mentor ever had: canceling all elections, overstaying the end of his constitutional term, and overseeing a wave of oppression, kidnapping, and the assassination of critics and journalists that left millions of Haitians in privation and fear. Suddenly, it seemed the blank-faced cipher introduced to Haitians only recently as the “Banana Man” might be a new dictator in the making.

And now, just as unexpectedly, he’s dead. This morning around 1 a.m. Haitian Standard Time, a group of still-unidentified gunmen broke into his home in the suburbs of Port-au-Prince, murdered him, and shot his wife, Martine. It is the first assassination of a sitting (if unconsti…