Pressure mounting but elections still in doubt

Opposition parties and civil society groups are turning up the heat on Benin’s President Mathieu Kerekou so that he will keep his promise to hold elections as planned early next year. Kerekou’s second term as head of state is set to expire at the beginning of April and he has promised to respect the constitution by not seeking a third mandate. But the government’s claims that it lacks the funds necessary to hold elections are feeding rumours that the president hopes to put off the vote until 2008. There are concerns about what such a move would mean for the future of a country whose constitution has provisions for the death or overthrow of the head of state, but not for the expiration of a mandate due to postponed polls. “Not holding these elections would lead to a judicial vacuum in Benin and could cause enormous problems for the country,” said local NGO coordinator Issa Badarou. So far, those clamouring for elections have not formed a united front, with representatives of the UN Development Programme and opposition parties meeting the president in person, while union leaders and women’s rights activists have opted for street protests. But talks are under way between opposition parties, NGOs, unions and religious leaders and they say the government must come up with the necessary funds by the end of the week or face as-yet-unrevealed consequences. Kerekou has persistently said that elections would go ahead as planned, a line that earned the praise of French President Jacques Chirac in November, the same month that the incumbents in Gabon and Burkina Faso won their umpteenth mandates to rule. However, blaming the country’s financial woes, Kerekou has announced that certain corners would have to be cut in order to keep expenses down. “I am well and truly organising the 2006 election but without the new census and no more than 2.8 billion CFA francs (US $5 million) in salaries and bonuses,” the president said last week. The salaries and bonuses in question are those owed to members of key bodies such as relevant government ministries, the Supreme Court, and the national electoral commission. Some of those who would be affected by the measure see it as an acceptable price to pay to maintain the country’s reputation as a model for democracy in West Africa. “We are ready to organise the elections even with zero francs in salaries,” said Sylvain Nouwatin, president of the national election commission which has also halved its proposed budget. “The key thing is for the necessary funding to be put at our disposal.” And proponents of a March election also appeared unfazed by Tuesday’s approval by parliament of a law cancelling a new census meant to make manipulation of voting lists more difficult. “There’s no such thing as an election without fraud. Look at any country, even in the US there is fraud,” Abraham Zinzindohoue of the main opposition party, Renaissance of Benin, said on television the day before the motion was passed. “Fraud is an integral part of any election,” he said, adding that his party would compensate for the out-of-date voting lists by placing ‘anti-fraud’ observers on the ground. Benin, rated by the UN as one of the world’s 20 poorest countries, has been hit hard by the growing imbalance between the value of exports like cotton and imports like petrol. And the continued presence of 20,000 refugees who fled neighbouring Togo’s political violence earlier this year is placing an additional strain on state coffers. So much so, that the finance minister said last month that it would be impossible to come up with the nearly US $60 million necessary to organise polls. But earlier this month, a senior official at the ministry of finance disputed the government’s claim and said that the state had the resources necessary to carry out what he described as a “sovereign expenditure and priority” on schedule. And to the consternation of many Beninese, the regime has announced the purchase of 237 luxury vehicles to update its fleet. While the money involved represented only about two percent of the sum needed to hold elections, the timing struck them as questionable. “He comes up with plenty of statements of goodwill but his actions have planted doubt in the minds of many,” said highschool teacher Innocent Dossa. “Money is wasted on this and that but we don’t even have the means to hold elections.”