On eve of election campaign, strikes and cash crunch cloud poll

Weeks ahead of presidential elections in Benin, registration glitches and continued financial constraints are clouding efforts to select a replacement for exiting 72-year-old leader Mathieu Kerekou. “We do not understand anything anymore. There is too much confusion with the electoral commission and the government - it hardly encourages us to take part in the poll,” said Nouratou Zounon, who sells vegetables at Ganhi market in Cotonou, the seat of government. Benin citizens are scheduled to head to the polls on 5 March to choose a successor to Kerekou, who is bound by constitutional age and a two-term limit to step aside. The electoral campaign is set to begin on Saturday in the country of seven million. But for months cash problems have clouded the poll, and in the last weeks strikes by election workers over pay disrupted the registration of voters on the electoral roll. The registration process - necessary for the issuance of voter cards - ran from 21 January to 6 February. But electoral workers in some districts brought operations to a halt two days before the end, complaining that they were being paid far less than other registrars. “There has been injustice in the distribution of these payments,” Norbert Codjia, an electoral agent in Cotonou, told IRIN. He said he and his colleagues received only 2,000 CFA francs (US $3.60) –far less than expected- while their counterparts received up to six times that amount. Despite negotiations led by the CENA national electoral commission, some electoral agents confiscated voter lists, unused voter cards and other election documents. CENA president Sylvain Nouwatin warned this week that those who made off with documents were subject to punishment. “[The agents], in carrying out these acts, are going against the electoral law,” he told reporters. The tussles are only the latest in a series of glitches threatening to hamper Benin’s presidential election process. Late last year the government declared it did not have the resources to fund the poll, sparking worries among some that Kerekou was underhandedly trying to hold on to power by pushing back elections. The announcement triggered a national outcry and protestors marched through the streets of Cotonou. In a bid to calm the situation, the government came up with a compromise - retaining the poll date but slashing funds for the CENA by two-thirds. Last month national NGOs and civil society groups launched an election support fund and civil servants went on strike in protest. In the wake of the recent disputes, some observers say Benin must put itself firmly on a track to successful elections. Atayi Guedegbe, a CENA advisor and head of an ethics NGO, said, “There are too many problems among the electoral agents that we must resolve. If this drags out, it would be catastrophic after six months of efforts toward holding this election.”