Benin holds presidential election four months after failed coup

This Sunday, just four months after a failed coup, Benin heads to the polls for a presidential election that feels more like a coronation than a contest.Patrice Talon, the businessman turned politician who has been president since 2016, is ineligible to run again after serving two five-year terms.The winner of Sunday’s election will have the chance to run for two seven-year terms instead, after a controversial constitutional amendment elongated presidential tenures.Romuald Wadagni, the country’s finance minister who emerged as the ruling coalition’s candidate without any primaries, is overwhelmingly the favourite to win this weekend.According to the investigative newsletter Africa Confidential, the path to a Wadagni win was cleared with ruthless efficiency as other possible contenders were sidelined, placated or removed.Wadagni, who speaks English fluently after years as a technocrat in the US, is seen as the architect of Benin’s recent fiscal stability in the Talon era. He has vowed to implement free schooling and more jobs, appealing promises in a country where young people account for more than half of the population.If the 49-year-old emerges as the winner, he will be one of the youngest leaders on a continent where the average presidential age is 65. West and central Africa is home to two of the world’s longest-serving leaders in Cameroon’s 93-year-old Paul Biya and Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema, 83.A peaceful democratic transition after the failed coup also presents Benin an opportunity to buck another regional trend: at least three of its neighbours are ruled by juntas. But Talon’s critics say he is also a strongman in a similar mould and have accused him of crushing dissent despite noticeable development in the country.Discontent trickled down to some troops and coalesced into December’s attempted military takeover. But many believe the soldiers also acted because of a rise in jihadist attacks at its borders with Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria.Several newspapers have been closed indefinitely by authorities after publishing information critical of the government. Hugues Sossoukpè, a journalist who had been in exile in Togo since 2021, was arrested on Ivorian soil by Beninese agents last July. He remains in Ouidah prison, tagged as a “dangerous cyberactivist who advocates terrorism”.Patrice Talon, the businessman turned politician who has been president since 2016, is ineligible to run again. Photograph: Benin TV/Reuters TV/Reuters“Civic space continues to shrink in Benin with a wave of attacks on independent media outlets and people still being arbitrarily arrested and detained for dissent,” said Dieudonné Dagbéto, the head of Amnesty International Benin. “Despite progress, women and marginalised groups face discrimination, while forced evictions jeopardise the human rights of thousands of people.”There are also concerns about Benin increasingly becoming a one-party state. In 2024, parliament raised the thresholds for candidacy, now requiring parties to get at least 10% of the vote to secure seats and for an aspiring president to be sponsored by at least 15% of the country’s mayors and lawmakers. That helped the ruling coalition win all 109 seats in January’s legislative elections as opposition parties found it extremely difficult to make the cut.Only 36% of the approximately 7.8 million people registered to vote showed up for the January poll. Ahead of this weekend, there are concerns about a similar outcome.The main opposition to Wadagni is the former culture minister Paul Hounkpè of Cowry Forces for an Emerging Benin (FCBE), a fringe opposition party. He is seen as a token candidate after cutting a deal with the ruling coalition to meet the required threshold.Unable to meet the requirements, the lead opposition party, the Democrats, are not presenting any candidates. While they have not called for a boycott, they have refused to back anyone in this weekend’s election. In fact, the party suspended almost two dozen members for anti-party activities after reportedly endorsing the ruling coalition candidate.“The disqualification of our duo [candidate and running mate] is a programmed exclusion,” it said in a statement after the constitutional court affirmed the exclusion last October. “It proves that the 2026 election is being organised to exclude any serious challenger to the ruling power.”