is a crazy week that ended with a bang in Benin. One of the twenty candidates for the presidential election next April, Ganiou Soglo, was shot and wounded overnight from Friday to Saturday by strangers. The information circulated very quickly on social networks before being confirmed to Agence France-Presse by concordant sources. “He was shot in the shoulder, but his prognosis is not committed,” a member of his family told AFP, who went to his bedside in hospital. “At present, the bullets have not yet been extracted,” said this source.
What happened ?
Former deputy and minister, son of ex-president Nicéphore Soglo, today in opposition to President Patrice Talon, Ganiou Soglo was going in the evening to his farm in Zinvié, 35 kilometers from Cotonou, when his vehicle was came under fire by unidentified individuals who fled. He is currently hospitalized in the emergency room of the Hubert-Maga university hospital, the largest public hospital in Cotonou.
Reactions in the country
On Saturday, several opposition political figures came to his bedside, including former President Boni Yayi, under whose authority Ganiou Soglo had been Minister of Sports. Police have opened an investigation but have yet to issue a statement.
In a statement, the government spokesman, Alain Orounla, “deplored and condemned the attack on the physical integrity of our compatriot Ganiou Soglo, assaulted on the night of Friday, February 5”. Wishing a “speedy recovery” to the victim, the government “ensures the diligence of the investigations promptly undertaken by the police in order to elucidate the circumstances and the motives of this attack and to apprehend the perpetrators”.
Another opposition candidate, Reckya Madougou, who came to the victim’s bed at the end of the morning, lamented that “participating in a presidential election today in Benin is a nightmare”. She denounced on social networks “shameful maneuvers of exclusion to assassination attempts through threats”.
Where are the applications?
It must be said that the context of the next presidential election is extremely tense. This small West African country, long seen as a model of democracy, is preparing to experience an unprecedented election, while the major opposition figures find themselves in exile or condemned to ineligibility sentences prohibiting them from running. . It is also this week that the potential candidates had to file their file with the Electoral Commission, the Cena. A total of 20 candidacies, including that of outgoing President Patrice Talon, were thus submitted Thursday at midnight, the deadline for submission set for the presidential election of April 11 in Benin. The twenty applications submitted “are provisional pending their study on the merits” and their validation by the Constitutional Court, a member of the Commission told AFP. To be validated, these candidatures must in particular be sponsored by at least 16 deputies or mayors, according to a new provision of the electoral law. However, during the legislative elections of April 2019, none of the opposition parties had been authorized to present lists, and at the end of the municipal elections of April 2020, boycotted by some of the opponents, only six mayors of this mobility were elected. The opposition thus denounces a locked ballot in advance, and the free field given to Patrice Talon to choose the candidates he will face.
Sponsorships, a challenge
According to an internal source at the Commission, of the twenty candidatures submitted, only that of Patrice Talon and that of the Force cauris party for an emerging Benin (FCBE), considered as the largest political opposition formation, meet the sponsorship criteria. This party, formerly led by ex-president Yayi Boni, who left it in February 2020, accusing him of having become pro-Talon, submitted the candidacy of Alassane Soumanou, a former minister. Mr. Boni’s new party, the Democrats, has submitted, without sponsorship, the candidacy of former Minister Reckyath Madougou. Among the other notable candidacies of the opposition is that carried by the Front for the Restoration of Democracy, created in mid-January, headed by the academic and constitutionalist Joël Aïvo (in duet with Moïse Kérékou, editor’s note), a novice in political but considered the main challenger to Patrice Talon for this election. These candidates still have until Sunday midnight to submit their sponsorships to the Commission.
President Patrice Talon, who said at the time of his election in 2016 that he wanted to serve a single term, has since changed his mind and officially declared a candidate in mid-January. During this election, the Beninese will elect a vice-president for the first time, according to a new provision of the electoral law. Patrice Talon has chosen as running mate Mariam Chabi Talata, current vice-president of the National Assembly. In the meantime, all eyes are on February 10 and 12, for the publication of the final list.
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