Benin’s Finance Minister Romuald Wadagni has secured the presidency with a substantial majority of the vote, provisional results indicate.
He secured more than 94% of the vote, based on 90% of ballots counted, sufficient for an “irreversible” outcome, the electoral commission said based on preliminary figures.
Wadagni, 49, was the favourite to win after the main opposition party, the Democrats, failed to get its own candidate on to the ballot paper. This left Paul Hounkpè as the sole challenger – he conceded the election earlier on Monday as votes were still being counted.
Wadagni was chosen by the outgoing leader Patrice Talon, who was barred from running again after two terms in office.
Hounkpè congratulated Wadagni noting that results so far had pointed to his victory, adding that “democracy requires mutual respect and the ability to rise above partisan divides”.
He was left as the only challenger as the Democrats’ presidential hopeful could not secure the minimum number of elected officials to sponsor a candidacy.
Presidential candidates must get formal endorsements from lawmakers in order to run, according to Benin’s electoral regulations.
The voter turnout across the country was 58.75%.
In the absence of a credible opposition, many viewed the election as a formality.
The new president will have to deal with worsening insecurity and chronic poverty, especially in the country’s north.
Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group JNIM killed 54 soldiers in April last year, with a similar attack killing 15 more last month.
The deteriorating security situation was one of the main reasons soldiers cited for attempting a coup four months ago.
Benin, a country with a population of 15 million, is one of West Africa’s more stable democracies, in a region where several military coups have happened in recent years.
