Cotonou, Benin — Finance and Foreign Affairs Minister Romuald Wadagni is poised to become Benin’s next president after challenger Paul Hounkpe publicly admitted defeat late Monday.
In a televised address carried by domestic channels, Hounkpe told viewers he had phoned Wadagni to offer “republican congratulations,” adding, “Democracy requires mutual respect and the ability to rise above partisan divides,” the AFP news agency reported.
The concession cements the governing coalition’s grip on power. Wadagni, 52, had entered the race as the hand-picked successor to President Patrice Talon, who completes his second and final five-year term this year.
Turn — out data are still pending, but election staff noted sparse morning queues at many polling stations in the commercial capital, Cotonou. Nearly eight million citizens were registered for the ballot.
Hounkpe, who ran under the Cowry Forces for an Emerging Benin banner, had campaigned on the argument that headline GDP growth of 7.5 percent in 2024 had failed to lift ordinary households out of hardship.
Wadagni countered with pledges to expand social — security coverage, speed rural water schemes, and widen access to public clinics. His task is complicated by rising jihadist violence in the north, where militants from Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin killed 54 soldiers in one assault last year and another 15 in March.
The incoming administration will also confront a poverty rate above 30 percent and a parliament in which the governing camp holds every seat; the main opposition Democrats were shut out after winning only about 16 percent of the vote in the January legislative poll, short of the 20 percent entry threshold.
Source: aljazeera
Original author: Al Jazeera and Agencies
