(Cotonou) Beninese elect their deputies on Sunday and will be able to choose among opposition candidates, authorized to participate in the ballot after four years of absence, a first under President Patrice Talon.
The opposition was unable to participate in the last legislative elections, in 2019, due to a tightening of the voting rules. Only two formations of the presidential movement had been authorized to compete, giving rise to a Parliament entirely won over to President Talon.
These elections were marred by deadly violence, and marked by record abstention as well as a total internet shutdown, extremely rare events in Benin, a country once seen as a model of democracy in West Africa.
This time, seven political parties, including three claiming to be opposition, were allowed to participate. But the majority of President Talon’s main opponents are either in prison or in exile.
Some 6.6 million voters are called to the 8,000 voting centers to appoint the 109 deputies, including at least 24 women – at least one per constituency – according to the new Electoral Code.
The parties having won more than 10% of the vote will distribute the 109 seats, according to the proportional system. The results are expected within the next week.
“The elders must leave and make way for the young! “says Constance Malomé in Cotonou, 40, activist of the Popular Liberation Movement (MPL), opposition party.
Distel Amoussou, project manager for the secretary general of the Republican Bloc (BR), a party of the presidential movement, spoke to AFP about the absence of the opposition in Parliament for the past four years.
“We were angry to beat these formations in the polls, see you on January 8,” Mr. Amoussou said on Thursday.
Beyond the place that the opposition will have in Parliament, this election is of particular importance: the mandate of the members of the Constitutional Court expires during the year.
However, the composition of this Court, of which four members are appointed by the deputies, the three others being chosen by the Head of State, could prove crucial in three years.
Its main mission is to monitor the elections, the next of which, the legislative, municipal and presidential elections will all be held in 2026.
Elected in 2016, re-elected in 2021, the wealthy businessman Patrice Talon has launched all-out political and economic reforms with a view to putting his country on the path to development. But this modernization has also been accompanied by a significant democratic decline, according to the opposition.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has announced that it has deployed 40 observers, distributed since Friday in the 12 regions of the country, to “support and monitor the entire electoral process”.