This interesting article on political developments in Benin that have seen the exclusion of main opposition parties from elections for a third time is by David Zounmenou, Ella Jeannine Abatan and Michaël Matongbada in ReliefWeb. Here is an excerpt:

On 11 April, Benin will hold its seventh presidential election since the 1990 national conference that paved the way for the country’s peaceful transition from military dictatorship to democracy.

The country gained the reputation of being a beacon of democracy in West Africa for holding successive inclusive elections and ushering in peaceful transfers of power. However this image was tarnished by the 2019 violence that followed the legislative election, where security forces killed at least four protesters.

In that year the two ruling parties, the Republican Bloc (BP) and Progressist Union (UP), adopted an electoral code that introduced an endorsement requirement that resulted in the exclusion of the main opposition parties from the presidential run. This has stymied the credibility of the upcoming presidential polls.

Read the full article here.