DAKAR, Senegal — Voters in Benin cast ballots Sunday to choose a successor to President Patrice Talon, who is stepping down after a decade in power, leaving a mixed legacy of economic growth, a growing jihadi insurgency in the north and the suppression of opposition critics.
Romuald Wadagni, the 49-year-old finance minister and governing coalition standard-bearer, is considered Talon’s anointed successor. Wadagni is being challenged by Paul Hounkpè, the sole opposition candidate.
Nearly 8 million are registered to vote across more than 17,000 polling stations in the West African nation. Benin had over 15 million people in 2024, and like many sub-Saharan African countries, its population is overwhelmingly young. Polls are expected to close at 4 p.m. with the results expected within 48 hours.
Analysts widely expect Wadagni to win after a parliamentary election in January, during which the opposition failed to cross the 20% threshold required to win seats, leaving Talon's two allied parties in control of all 109 seats in the National Assembly.
Renaud Agbodjo, leader of the Democrats, was barred from competing after failing to secure a sufficient number of parliamentary endorsements — a threshold critics say was engineered to keep rivals out.
Wadagni has touted the country's economic growth during his decade as finance minister as his key strength. Benin’s economy grew 7% last year, making it one of West Africa’s steadiest performers.
“Ten years at the Finance Ministry have given him something rare in African politics: a quantified record — verifiable and difficult to dismantle in a serious debate,” said Fiacre Vidjingninou, political analyst at the Lagos-based Béhanzin Institute.
While Benin has historically been among the most stable democracies in Africa, opposition leaders and human rights organizations have accused Talon of using the justice system as a tool to sideline his political opponents.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have denounced a sustained crackdown on dissent under Talon, citing arbitrary detentions, tighter restrictions on public demonstrations and mounting pressure on independent media outlets.
Protests over the rising cost of living sprang up in recent years, but the government and security forces clamped down on any dissent.
In December, a group of military officers attempted to topple Talon's government in a failed coup, the latest in a series of recent military takeover attempts across Africa. Most attempted coups follow a similar pattern of disputed elections, constitutional upheaval, security crises and youth discontent.
Among the coup leaders’ key complaints was the deterioration of security in northern Benin.
For years, Benin has faced spillover violence in its north from neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger in their battle against the al-Qaida-affiliated extremist group Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM.
The tri-border area has long been a hotbed for extremist violence, a trend worsened by the lack of security cooperation with Niger and Burkina Faso, both now led by military juntas.
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