Electoral code : Maintain the lock of 10%

The political class has been agitated in recent days by the question of 10%. It is not about the rebate that some public sector officials unduly demand before awarding contracts or doing their duty.. It is rather, this time of the electoral threshold to be obtained before being allocated a seat in Parliament or in the municipal councils according to the elections.

According to the article 146 paragraph 1 of the Electoral Code adopted on 15 November 2019, “only lists that have collected at least 10% votes cast at national level, are eligible for the allocation of seats”. Most officially recognized parties in the Republic of Benin are fundamentally against this provision. And for good reason. In the last elections, only the Progressive Union, the Bloc Républicain and the Fcbe were able to cross this course.

A Grand Popo, at the initiative of the Mediator of the French Republic, political parties have asked for a reorganization with a view to greater heterogeneity in the next legislatures and within future municipal councils. At the head of these reformist parties, the Prd of Me Adrien Houngbédji who had however strongly used his influence for the establishment of this barrier. It's true that things have changed., the PRD was the biggest victim, which results in his absence from the town hall of Porto-Novo.

However, Should the Electoral Code be reviewed and the application of this principle of 10% ?  Any reform is motivated by reasons often of national interest. The introduction of this provision aims to promote the emergence of national political parties in an environment characterized by a fragmentation that the entire political class deplored.. Obscure reasons may have led some actors to adhere to this limitation, but the fact remains that the result has been a clarification of the political landscape..

Go back, is to encourage the existence of local and regional parties. Since the return of democracy in 1990, some parties, although present in the National Assembly, have never succeeded in having deputies in all the departments. Which does not make sense when we know that the law stipulates that the deputy is the elected representative of the whole nation and not of a department or of a single electoral district..

Pierre MATCHOUDO