Benin Ex-President Condemns Coup Attempt, ECOWAS Warns Of Instability

Former Beninese president Thomas Boni Yayi, whose opposition Democrats party has been excluded from next year’s presidential elections, on Tuesday condemned Sunday’s failed coup in a video posted on Facebook.

Sunday saw a day when a group of soldiers announced that they had ousted President Patrice Talon on national television, before authorities swiftly quelled the attempted uprising with military backing from several other West African countries.

“I condemn most vigorously and strongly condemn this bloody and shameful attack on our country,” said Boni Yayi, a former chairman of the African Union who served as Benin’s president from 2006 to 2016.

The transfer of state power “responds to a single cardinal and unconditional principle: that of the ballot box, that of the people, that of free and transparent elections”, Boni Yayi added.

His party was bounced from next year’s ballot after the election commission rejected its candidate, Renaud Agbodjo, for want of sufficient sponsors.

The attempted coup, the latest in the past five years across West Africa, beset by political instability, left several dead, while at least a dozen plotters were arrested.

Talon, who succeeded Boni Yayi as president, is set to pass the baton to a successor after April’s poll, having served the maximum two terms permitted by the constitution.

Finance Minister Romuald Wadagni is due to face off against a moderate rival from the opposition, Paul Hounkpe, a former minister and academic.

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Military intervention from Nigeria and others helped prevent Benin from joining Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea, and, last month, Guinea-Bissau on the list of West African countries to have undergone military takeovers in recent years.

Omar Alieu Touray, the president of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), meanwhile, declared on Tuesday that “elections have become a major trigger of instability in our community”.

“(There is a) growing erosion of electoral inclusivity across multiple states,” added Touray, given “the persistence of military interventions”.

“We also have to negotiate with our neighbours, the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), particularly the terms of our security cooperation as we continue to see the devastating effect of terrorist groups along our borders with them.”

“Our community is in a state of emergency,” he warned.

The AES groups Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, all run by military governments that have left ECOWAS in the wake of coups.

All three are wracked by jihadist violence, which has since spread to Benin and Togo.

AFP