Tyson's ECOWAS Occasional Journal - Politics in West Africa

I spent 2 1/2 years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin, in 1995-97, which included their 2nd democratic election, which was the 2nd election in which a challenger defeated the incumbent (in 1991 challenger Nicephore Soglo defeated incumbent Mathieu Kerekou, and in 1996, challenger Mathieu Kerekou defeated incumbent Nicephore Soglo) - so Benin is special to me, and I've always felt pride in their against-the-odds democratic quality. The April 28 election was a betrayal of Benin's democracy. All opposition parties were disqualified; only two parties were allowed to compete, and both of those parties supported the president. This system reminds me of the National Front for the Defense of the Revolution in Madagascar's Second Republic - there were six parties in legislative elections, but in order to qualify, each party had to be loyal to the president and his policies. What's happened since then? The NY Times reports that former president Boni Yayi was under ...

I forgot to post something about my Monkey Cage post on the Benin election on this blog a few months ago: In the weeks before Benin’s April 28 election, police used tear gas to disperse demonstrations led by former presidents Nicephore Soglo and Thomas Boni Yayi, who called for a boycott of the opposition-less election .  The government blocked social media and messaging apps on the Internet. International and domestic observers canceled poll monitoring plans in anticipation of violence — there were two reported deaths and 206 incidents during the election. Boni Yayi called for the election results to be annulled; soldiers in tanks circled his home and fired on hundreds of protesters.  Such events would be unsurprising in some African countries, including neighboring Togo . But these were shocking developments in Benin, a country that sparked a wave of democratization in 1990. The 2019 election fared poorly on two key measurements of democracy , participation and...

Nice analysis by Robbie Corey-Boulet  (World Politics Review) of the run-up to the presidential election in Cote d'Ivoire. Read the whole thing ; here are some highlights: The quiet, behind-the-scenes preparations for Cote d’Ivoire’s next presidential election in 2020 were given a jolt this week by a man many expected would play only a supporting role in the process. In an interview published Sunday by the magazine Jeune Afrique, President Alassane Ouattara, who is nearing the end of his second term, said the West African nation’s new constitution would enable him to run twice more , in 2020 and again in 2025.  Cote d’Ivoire limits presidents to two terms, and Ouattara had previously said numerous times that he would abide by the restriction. But by claiming that the new constitution, adopted in 2016, gives him a clean slate, he seemed to be openly flirting with the kind of power grab typical of other African presidents who are more interested in their own longevity ...