Since President Patrice Talon came to power in Benin Republic, the country has taken a serious step back from a democratic point of view, with the exclusion of all political parties that oppose it from electoral contests. Regarding the January 2023 Legislative, only one opposition party, The Democrats, was authorized to run. Excluded at first, it was fished out in extremis, for reasons that the regime of Patrice Talon is the only one to know. But what democratic credit is granted to the said legislative elections?
"Yes. We hope so because it becomes visible and it embarrasses the collective consciousness that, every time there is an election, it is always the opposition that is in trouble. It gets awkward. And we think that our leaders should take this into account to ease the social atmosphere, and above all to take care of the brand image of our country internationally, because it proves that there is only the opposition which does not know how. It's embarassing. Anyway, we think that by this evening, tomorrow before the filing of the files, we will find the consensus”. So replied Komlan Léon Ahossi, second Vice-President of the party The Democrats (Les Démocrates) to the question posed to him by RFI as to whether, after having been excluded from the past Legislative elections, he hoped that the Opposition could stand for election for this second term of office. President Patrice Talon. And he was right to hope.
Only here: to look closely, for these Legislative, it is less the normal functioning of the electoral machine of Benin Republic which made it possible to manage and untie the blocking of the participation of the only opposition party in the running. This was above all the result of the will of the Prince who governs the country.
When the Autonomous National Electoral Commission (Commission électorale nationale autonome - CENA) published on November 16 the list of parties having obtained the final receipts for the legislative elections of January 8, the party Les Démocrates was not an integral part of it. Its list having been invalidated for lack of tax clearance of four of its candidates. A fault that this party had directly attributed to the financial administration to the orders. But an appeal filed before the Constitutional Court made it possible to lift the handicap after the financial administration finally received instructions from the highest level of the State to rectify the situation. No doubt under international pressure, which could no longer turn a blind eye to the organization of the Legislative elections a second time, without the participation of an opposition party.
Indeed, apart from the two large blocs formed under the leadership of President Patrice Talon himself, namely the Republican Bloc (Bloc Républicain - BR) and the Progressive Union (Union Progressiste - UP) and renamed for the occasion the Legislatives in the Progressive Union Le Renouveau (Union Progressiste Le Renouveau – UPR) following its merger with the former Party for Democratic Renewal (Parti du renouveau démocratique - PRD) led by Me Adrien Houngbédji, the other parties cannot be considered as Opposition. Although they are not satellite parties of the regime of President Patrice Talon, such as the Movement of Elites Committed to the Emancipation of Benin (Mouvement des Elites engagées pour l'émancipation du Bénin - MOELE-Benin) and the Democratic Union for a New Benin (Union Démocratique pour un Bénin Nouveau - UDBN), they are subservient to the regime. such as the Force Cauris party for an Emerging Benin (Force Cauris pour un Bénin Emergent - FCBE) and the Popular Liberation Movement (Mouvement Populaire de Libération - MPL).
What democratic credit granted to the Legislative elections of 2023?
It is an open secret that since 2016, Patrice Talon has questioned the socio-political system based on democratic principles that Benin Republic had reclaimed since the National Conference of February 1990. Somehow, the country was doing its little merry way before it was interrupted by the accession to power of this businessman who turned to politics. But by making false electoral promises to Beninese to get there.
By condemning and throwing in prison or by exiling his main opponents who did not want to comply with his wishes or who interfered with his business, Patrice Talon managed a real hold-up and on Benin Republic by decapitating its democracy. All those who were likely to interfere with his desire to take control of the country have been dismissed or brought to heel. Thus, the Talon regime installed a National Assembly made up of one hundred percent of its own supporters or trustees. The National Assembly elected in 2019 was only a real sounding board and a register of the will of the Head of State.
With the participation of the only truly opposition party, in this case The Democrats (Les Démocrates), many of them hoped for a change in the configuration of this previous Legislature, whose members in reality only represented their leader, Patrice Talon, and not the people of Benin Republic in its various components and opinions. Even if many Beninese condemn that, through political subterfuge, several other political parties have been excluded from the legislative elections supposed to be more inclusive to represent all the people.
Eric Houndété, Vice-President of the Seventh Legislature and current president of the party The Democrats (Les Démocrates) said in 2019: "First, there has not been a new Assembly because what is there and which is called Assembly is illegitimate and illegal . Then, the people we are talking about, who are installed in these conditions, have their hands tied (...) as long as there is not a National Assembly for the people, we consider that there is no of Assembly”. Also, the people of Benin Republic had a great time calling the deputies of the outgoing term of office all possible names: the "Great shame" of the country, "The Dishonorable" in opposition to "Honourable", the "Council of administration of Patrice Talon”, “Deputies Kpayo” because they are not well elected and compared to the adulterated gasoline of contraband from Benin Republic called “Kpayo”, “Deputies godillots and illegitimate”, etc. It should be noted that during the last legislative elections of April 28, 2019 for which all the opposition parties had been excluded, the Autonomous National Electoral Commission (CENA) had declared a participation rate of only 22.99 throughout the national territory. A boycott without appeal of Beninese voters who had, on occasion, followed the instructions and affirmed their commitment to respect for democratic principles. Because, in a democracy, the Representatives of the people are its expression.
In October 2019, a parliamentary seminar was organized with the 83 deputies of the eighth legislature in Cotonou on the theme: "Issues and challenges of the 8th legislature of the National Assembly of Benin". On this occasion, Nassirou Arifari Bako, MP and former Foreign Minister of President Thomas Boni Yayi, asked himself the following questions: "Is it acceptable for a quarter of the electorate to elect the members of a national representation in a country, whatever the circumstances at the time? How to have a blocking minority in a one-color parliament? How to consider the question of representation for elected officials resulting from such a process with the relative divorce from the electorate? “And he deduced that:” If abstentionism is the expression of voters' support for the cause of the “excluded”, then the thesis of electoral usurpation seems plausible. If, on the other hand, abstentionism is the result of indifference, then we can affirm that the elected representatives have legality but suffer from a deficit of legitimacy that a good exercise of the function of representation can make it possible to correct over time". Indeed, Parliament being the place par excellence where the people feel most represented, it is therefore up to the people and to them alone, through their sovereign expression in the ballot box, to designate their representatives whom they have freely chosen. among the people to represent them in the National Assembly. No one should assume this power instead of the sovereign people, at the risk of falling into illegitimacy, even illegality.
To quote our colleague Deo Gratias Kindoho: “As if the legislative elections of January 8, 2023 were not already a rather poor sketch in themselves, the satellites of the so-called rupture regime are busy adding a few ridiculous notes to insipidity. In their upside-down heads formatted to produce shenanigans, there is no national public opinion. They have created a parallel universe for themselves since 2016, which is an illusory bubble in which navel-gazing, cowardice and the moral abyss are virtues; a universe where righteousness and integrity are deadly sins. In this parallel universe, there must be no political party and electoral process except in the pay of Patrice Talon, presiding over a democratic Republic in the real world but tyrant-demi-god in his bubble, thinking and acting without question. If in 2019 he held the legislative elections exclusively with his two political parties, he preferred - to the communal elections of 2020 and the presidential election of 2021 - to find opponents at his convenience to serve as his stooges. It was to satisfy his cynicism and not out of scruples. The one we are talking about has no scruples”.
During the ballot of January 8, 2023, the vast majority of the people of Benin Republic made an exemplary and final choice. By massively granting its vote to the only real opposition party that was able to put itself in the running: The Democrats. A choice that this party must consider not as an adherence to the party and the speeches of its leaders, but a choice by default because it was the only one admitted to participate. And just the rest!
Ultimately, if the conduct of the electoral process did not suffer from major sprains as observed by attentive observers of the Beninese socio-political scene, the results were on the other hand biased, tainted with irregularities, even rigged. As evidenced by a document signed by the president of the CENA himself. It cannot therefore be said that these Legislatives of 2023 really deserve a credit for democratic elections. When we know that Patrice Talon and his followers and other supporters have decided to govern Benin Republic by "cunning and rage" and not by democratic principles, we would have to wait for the next elections to "advise" as Patrice Talon himself would say. Benin Republic, yesterday "laboratory of democracy" has become "laboratory of dictatorship" since 2016. And, Sacca Lafia, the former Minister of the Interior of Patrice Talon, current President of the Electoral Council of Benin (CEB), who is not known for its impartiality to reassure Beninese and exempt them from any citizen watch from the beginning to the end of the electoral process, has demonstrated this once again.
By Marcel Ahouangan
