Benin disqualifies all opposition parties in April's legislative election

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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 contestation. 
Voter turnout in previous elections in Benin never fell below 50 percent, yet only 23 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the April 2019 poll. Voters had little taste for an election devoid of competition when all opposition parties were disqualified.
Click HERE to read the rest. 



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