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Benin. Presidential Election, April 11.
Joseph Siegle & Candance Cook
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Benin’s presidential elections are part of a gambit by President Pierre Talon to normalize political exclusion as a means of perpetuating his hold on power. The inflection point for the current context was April 28, 2019—Benin’s last National Assembly elections, when only two parties loyal to Talon were allowed to run.
Béninois largely boycotted the elections resulting in only 27 percent turnout, which international observers deemed a sham. Protesters marched to voice their discontent. The military responded with live ammunition, killing at least four people, in this normally highly stable country.
In Summary
The move to exclude political opponents from participating, a reversal from Benin’s decades-long democratic norms, is an emblem of Talon’s governance style.
Believed to be Benin’s richest man prior to taking office in 2016, he has sought to weaken democratic checks and balances to deepen and extend his hold on power. Soon after coming into office, he tried in 2016 and 2017 to remove Benin’s two-term presidential limit in the National Assembly, only to be denied. He has stacked the Constitutional Court and Autonomous National Electoral Commission with loyalists, required parliamentary candidates to be “sponsored” by already elected officials, and charged potential political rivals with crimes, effectively barring them from running.
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An aggrieved citizen took the case of political exclusion from the 2019 legislative elections to the regional African Court of People’s and Human Rights (ACPHR). In November 2020, the Court ruled that the constitutional amendments used to exclude opposition parties violated the African Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance, to which Benin is a member. The ACPHR ordered Benin to annul the amendment and revert to the previous status quo.
There are at least 28 pending cases regarding Benin before the ACPHR, brought by Béninois who feel they cannot find remedy in Benin’s increasingly partisan courts. Resistant to such regional accountability, Talon is withdrawing Benin from the ACPHR.
Plus ça change…
1963
The April 2021 presidential elections are shaping up to be more of the same. Leading opposition candidates entrepreneur Sebastien Adjavon, former prime minister Lionel Zinsou, and former minister Komi Koutché have all had politically motivated charges filed against them and are now living in exile or otherwise barred from running. These actions effectively remove all serious challengers from Talon’s path to stay on for a second term.
Journalists who have reported critically on Talon have been harassed, threatened, and imprisoned. This is a stark contrast from the open media environment Benin had long enjoyed. A 2016 digital media law included provisions restricting press freedom and criminalizing normal activities of the press, like criticizing government officials. In July 2020, the High Authority for Broadcasting and Communication ordered the closure of all “unauthorized” online media outlets. Benin has dropped 38 places, from 75th to 113th, on Reporters without Borders’ annual Press Freedom Index since Talon came to power.
That Talon is intending to stay in power by stacking the electoral deck in his favor appears clear. The more profound question for Benin and West Africa is how will ECOWAS and the international community respond? If it accepts an electoral result where all viable candidates are blocked, protesters are denied the right to assemble, and independent journalists arrested, ECOWAS would be establishing a very low bar for what is deemed an election in West Africa.
Doing so would also solidify ECOWAS’ retrenchment from upholding democratic norms in the subregion, despite the mandate in its charter to do so and the subregional body’s exemplary record on this front over the years.
Contenders in Benin’s April election
Presidential Candidate
Running mate
Talon Patrice Athanase Guillaume
Chabi Talata Mariam
Kohoue Agbéléssessi Corentin
Agosa Irene Josiahs
Source: Commission Electorale Nationale Autonome/ Benin
The test of deterrence for ECOWAS
The response from ECOWAS and the international community is particularly meaningful given Benin’s legacy as a democratic pioneer in West Africa since the early 1990s. These democratic norms remain strong within society even though Talon has been able to circumvent the democratic institutional checks and balances on the executive.
Should Benin slip back into blatantly authoritarian practices decades after starting down a democratic path without a tangible response from ECOWAS and international democratic actors, the signal to other would-be authoritarians would be crystal clear.
In effect, the 2021 election will shape which of Benin’s historical trajectories it will follow moving forward. Given Benin’s role as democratic flag-bearer in the region, what happens there will create ripple effects for democratic norms in Africa that extend far wider than its size.
This article that originally appeared in www.africacenter.org has been modified to reflect the current status.
Dr Joseph Siegle is the Director or Research at Africa Center’s research program www.africacenter.org His areas of expertise include democratization, Security and Development. Candace Cook is a Research Assistant at Africa Center. She focuses on elections in Africa, good governance and democratic transitions.