The head of state, Patrice Talon, outgoing President of Benin, is running for the presidential election in April 2021. He has admittedly revealed it himself. But he has to face opponents who want his place.
He officially declared himself a candidate just over 72 hours earlier in Adjohoun, Ouémé, 63 km from the capital Cotonou.
“I will be a candidate in the name of good governance … (to) defend three things: democracy, our freedoms and good governance,” said President Patrice Talon three months before the presidential election scheduled for Sunday, April 11, 2021.
Gone are the days when, elected in 2006, the outgoing president declared: “I will make my sole mandate a moral requirement by exercising state power with dignity and simplicity. I will carry out my duties as President of the Republic with humility, abnegation and sacrifice for the well-being of all. I will endeavor to make this mandate an instrument of rupture and transition leading to the implementation of the major political and institutional reforms that we have all called for “.
Five years later, political considerations, diplomatic realities, geo-strategic and political power relations have pushed the President to no longer be the champion of the single mandate. Because “for my part, I will remain in the action to strengthen good governance, just to strengthen this good governance that we have just acquired, which is proving its worth, which allows us to start building our country, of ourselves. take charge, to start to develop.
This good governance is a new achievement now imperative which complements democracy, freedom, to make us a worthy people … It deserves that each one still gives it with energy, with faith, with fervor, until that becomes a definitive achievement, until we can no longer go back… ”.
After this quasi-official declaration of candidacy, the Beninese opposition did not wait to kick in the stretchers. Because there is no lack of tension in this election. Indeed, for this electoral competition, it is required, among other things, the sponsorship of elected officials. A crucial provision that could make the difference between power and the opposition. In favor of power.
Thus, political groups have formed a “Front for the Restoration of Democracy – collective opposition”, the objective of which is to achieve alternation. These parties include, among others, The Democrats by Eric Houndété, the Unitary Dynamics for Democracy and Development (DUD) by Valentin Aditi Houdé, Grande Solidarité Républicaine (GSR) by Antoine Guédou and Rassemblement Joël Aïvo ( RJA).
Some five million Beninese voters are called to the polls on Sunday April 11, 2021 for the first round of the presidential election. This presidential election will be the 7th of its kind in Benin since the advent of the democratization process in February 1990.
