Benin prepared to go to polls
2003-03-29 20:28
Cotonou - The small west African country of Benin, regarded as a model of democracy in the continent, prepared for legislative elections on Sunday by deploying more than 500 observers to ensure free and fair polls.
An official source Saturday said the observers were despatched by the Collective of Beninese Organisations for Free Elections and other independent bodies.
They include representatives from media clients and have been sent to the country's 12 departments with the approval of the Autonomous National Election Commission (CENA).
Foreign observers are not coming. They did not monitor the last legislative elections in 1999 either, saying they pinned their faith on the "maturity" of the Beninese people.
Some 3.1 million people are eligible to vote for a total of 1 162 candidates from 14 parties or political alliances in the running for 83 seats in the single chamber parliament on Sunday, the fourth legislative elections since the introduction of multi-party polls in 1990.
Leading candidates in the elections include eight ministers from the government of President Mathieu Kerekou who took power in a 1972 coup and ruled uninterruptedly apart from a short gap between 1991 and 1996, prominent businessmen and senior retired army officials.
Among the political groups fielding candidates are the ruling coalition, Union for the Benin of the Future (UBF), the main opposition Renaissance of Benin (RB) led by former president Nicephore Soglo, and the Party for Democratic Renewal (PRD) headed by Adrien Houngbedji, the mayor of Benin's capital Porto Novo.
Soglo, a former World Bank official, won Benin's first multi-party polls in 1991 and served as president until 1996, when he lost elections to Kerekou, a former military ruler. Kerekou was re-elected in 2001.
Benin has been a rare exception in Africa in that power has changed hands peacefully with a minimum of fuss. Elections have generally been peaceful.
The president's coalition is trying to garner a clear majority in parliament this time. In the outgoing parliament, the opposition has 38 deputies against 41 for the ruling coalition.
The main themes in the current campaign are corruption, the alleged spiriting away of state funds and unemployment.
However, the state of the economy's health is far better on the eve of the elections than in previous years, mainly due to cotton - the main revenue earner.
According to recent statistics released by the finance ministry, gross domestic product (GDP) growth rose from 4.5% in 1998 to 6% in 2002.
The inflation rate has fallen from 5.8% in 1998 to 2.5% in 2002.
Cotton, the country's main export accounting for about 80% of earnings, yielded a record crop in 2001-2002 with an output of 415 000 tons against an annual average of about 350 000 tons since the last 10 years.
"This is not a fluke. Benin has been assiduously engaged in setting right the macro-economic parameters, all this has helped us in achieving these results," an official from the finance ministry told AFP.
"We can do even better if everyone at his level is rigorous and makes the necessary sacrifices in the interest of the nation. These efforts have already borne fruit as our development partners have started having more and more confidence in us."