Jan. 11 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Autonomous National Electoral Commission (CENA) of Benin announced this Wednesday that the main opposition party, led by former president Thomas Boni Yayi, has garnered 24.2 percent of the votes, so it will again be part of the Parliament with 28 seats after several years of absence.
The results have been led by the parties close to the current Beninese president, Patrice Talon: Progressive Union for Renewal (UPR), which has obtained 53 seats -37.56 percent of the total votes–, and the Republican bloc , with 28 seats, which represents 29.17 percent of the votes, as reported by the newspaper ‘La Nouvelle Tribune’.
The participation of Los Demócratas (LD), led by former president Boni Yayi, in the January 8 elections remained up in the air until the last moment because the Electoral Commission warned that the party lacked the tax certificates that were they had asked him to attend.
However, a subsequent successful appeal to the Constitutional Court gave The Democrats permission to stand in the legislative elections, now being the third most seated political force in the country.
More than 6.5 million voters voted on Sunday in elections where representatives of seven political parties, four from the presidential movement and three from the opposition, ran for the 109 seats in the National Assembly in the 24 constituencies under the watchful eye of a mission of 40 observers from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
President Talon keeps two major LD opponents, former minister Reckya Madougou and constitutionalist Joël Aïvo, imprisoned by order of a special anti-terrorism court, harshly criticized by the opposition for considering the court an instrument purely at the service of the president.
Talon and Boni Yayi have a strained relationship. In 2012, the then president accused Talon, a cotton magnate, of trying to have him poisoned, but the businessman denied the accusations. In 2016, Talon prevailed over Boni Yayi’s preferred successor in the elections, given that he was unable to run for a new term after ten years in power.
Talon, re-elected president in 2021, has promised the country’s civil organizations that he will leave power in 2026, when it corresponds to him according to the Constitution, and in no way will he try, as he has defended, to extend the allowed number of terms to perpetuate himself in power. .
