Benin

Benin: Between new beginnings and old elites

On Sunday decides who will be President in Benin. In the race for a Prime Minister who has spent the greater part of his life in France, and the wealthy intimate enemy of the Old President Boni Yayi.

Lionel Zinsou, the vote in the first round of the election on may 6. March

In Benin, the rumor mill. In the West African country that is the cradle of the ancient Voodoo Religion, there has been in the past few weeks any amount of the Oracle to find out who is the new President. Because of the ten million inhabitants in the state is in election fever: On Sunday is good.

In the small town of Ouidah, about an hour’s drive from the economic capital Cotonou far, shakes Daagbo Hounon to the head. “We can’t predict which candidate will win”, declared the highest Voodoo representatives in the country. Therefore, he would like to make any forecast.

Voodoo representative Hounon: “Pray that peace prevails”

“Our task is to pray so that peace prevails,” he says modestly, but Many of the initial 33 candidates had visited him in his Palace in Ouidah, talked to him, and his blessing asked for.

Poor performance of the government candidate

Whether Lionel Zinsou and Patrice Talon were including, he says nothing about smiling. You have made it to the first ballot in the runoff election. Zinsou’s Prime Minister and candidate of the Old President Boni Yayi. He took 28.4 percent. A lean result, Klaus-Peter Treydte, Director of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Cotonou: “Boni Yayi has get 2011 to 53 percent. So the half is broken away.”

The 63-year-old Yayi is no longer allowed to compete after two terms in office. He had flirted with another five years of state. In his Effort to achieve this goal, he had a falling out, of all things, with Patrice Talon, who is now in second place in the runoff election to Yayis succession. The richest people in Benin – the “Forbes magazine” estimated his fortune at around US $ 400 million – was financed in 2006 and 2011, whose election campaign.

Donors of the old regime is intimate enemy

But then the Old President spanned apparently the bow: He had asked Talon, all 83 members of Parliament with the equivalent of the well-76.000 Euro-equip, says Roger Gbégnonvi, former Minister and well-known head of the civil society. “You should agree to a constitutional amendment, so that Boni Yayi may compete a third Time.”

Candidate Patrice Talon refused to parliamentarians to bribe

Talon refused. “He had the courage to say no. The Benin hang on to your Constitution, and will not accept,” Gbégnonvi. It is a multi-year farce, which reached its climax followed, as Boni Yayi accused the renegade financier, he had planned to poison him. After three years in French exile, the 57-Year-old who had earned his fortune in the cotton trade, 2015 returned home.

Cotton Baron to bring the new beginning

“Talon speaks of ‘nouveau départ’, a new beginning,” explains Klaus-Peter Treydte strategy. In this respect, the break with the old System was, for the Lionel Zinsou. As the preferred candidate of Boni Yayi Zinsou embodies the continuation of old structures. The 62-year-old Banker was even before the first ballot as the most promising candidate.

The people in Benin want to benefit from the economic growth

But after his vote on the 6th March, he rowed back and said: “The decision is really in the hands of the voters. I make no forecast.” Zinsou has yet another obstacle: He has spent his whole life in France and came only in the past June as Prime Minister in the homeland of his father. Now, to compound matters, 24 of the eliminated candidates formed an Alliance, and the Talon of their support. Current speculation is that the second ballot for Zinsou could end up with a fiasco.

West African model of democracy and economic disaster

Many people in Benin want one for your home country, It must finally do something. The state is regarded as a democratic and politically stable. But economically, it has just done in the second term of Boni Yayi. The country depends on the revenue from the port in Cotonou and its cotton exports. However, as Klaus-Peter Treydte, economic growth, depending on the investigation currently, approximately between 5.5 and 6.1 per cent. “But it is a pure numbers growth. One without a job.”

The Voodoo priest Daagbo Hounon feel in Ouidah. There is too much poverty, he says, and calls from the future head of state: “Everyone should have at least two meals per day.” And yet a desire he has: The corruption need to stop. “Those who lead us, think only of themselves and fill their pockets. This is not normal.”