Benin set for Sunday's polls

All is set for the election of a successor to the outgoing President of Benin, Dr Yayi Boni on Sunday March 6, 2015.

A total of 4,746,348 electorates will decide which of 33 presidential candidates should be given the nod.

Approximately 44,180 of these voters will cast their ballot outside the country, in polling stations mounted in the 32 counties.

As usual with Benin elections, political pundits are suggesting a second round.

Leading candidates
The prominent five include the current Prime Minister, Lionel Zinsou; Sebastien Ajavon, a wealthy businessman; Patrice Talon, who has made a fortune from dealing in cotton; a former Prime Minister for President Yayi for 7 years and 4 months, Pascal Irene Koupaki and Abdoulaye Bio Tchane, known in political circles as “ABT and international economist.

Atmosphere
A drive through some Benin towns and villages and information gathered from other sources by the Daily Graphic team covering the polls indicate that the atmosphere is calm with the 33 candidates putting finishing touches to their authorized 15-day campaign which ended Saturday.

Already, materials for the elections, heavily guarded by armed security, have been dispatched from the capital Cotonou to the 11 other regions of the country for onward distribution to the 13,539 polling stations in the country on elections day.

Unlike some countries where the electoral commission has permanent offices in each region and/or district, the Commission Electorale Nationale Autonome (CENA) du Benin or the Independent National Electoral Commission of Benin does not have any offices apart from the headquarters in Cotonou.

With this, officers who would train polling agents and other election officials were dispatched from the capital on Wednesday to start the training of these electoral offices Friday and Saturday.

Electoral officers under the eagle eyes of armed security officers Saturday sorted out the materials at various regional levels to be dispatched to the district level in readiness for the Sunday election.

In Benin the voters register is compiled by a different body and handed over to the electoral commission days to the election.

Results
Explaining how the results would be collated, the Chairman of the electoral commission, Prof Emmanuel Tiando, said they would be relayed manually from the polling stations to the 7,909 collation centres.

These will also be transported manually from the various parts of the country to the headquarters of the electoral commission in Cotonou which will in turn give it to the Constitutional Court that will validate and declare the results based on its findings after complaints and concerns have been resolved.

Already, the court which is clothed with the final say in all electoral matters has dispatched hundreds of judges and magistrates to monitor the elections in all corners of the country.

Cards
Due to lapses and delays in printing and distributing new biometric voters’ identity cards, the Constitutional court of Benin ruled that those with old laminated paper cards can use it to vote.

Agents of Candidates
According to CENA each candidate is allowed to have a representative at each of the polling stations, meaning that there could be as many as 33 accredited agents at a polling station, aside four electoral commission officers.

Candidates and parties
There are over 100 political parties in Benin and the presidential candidates contest mostly as independent candidates with support from some of these parties but not on their tickets.

Surprisingly while some leaders of a particular party pledge their support for a candidate, youth groups or sections of the same party, depending on their interest can also offer their support to a different candidate.