Benin’s Cowry Forces for an Emerging Benin, FCBE, has announced that it is joining the ruling majority, less than one month after losing the country’s presidential election and two weeks before President-elect Romuald Wadagni is due to take office.
The FCBE, long considered a moderate opposition party, was the only opposition group allowed to field a candidate in the April 12 presidential election against the ruling coalition’s nominee. Its candidate, Paul Hounkpè, won less than six percent of the vote, while Wadagni, outgoing President Patrice Talon’s chosen successor, secured a landslide victory with more than 94 percent. Hounkpè has since left the party.
Party leaders said the decision to join the presidential bloc followed the FCBE’s poor performance in both the presidential and parliamentary elections, where it failed to win a seat. The ruling camp, made up of the Progressive Union for Renewal and the Republican Bloc, had already swept all parliamentary and municipal seats before the presidential vote.
“The people have made their choice and the choice of the people is binding on us,” said Yaya Garba, one of the party’s leaders. FCBE officials said they wanted to contribute to national development and congratulated Talon for what they described as the calm organization of the elections.
Wadagni, a former finance minister and close ally of Talon, is scheduled to be inaugurated on May 24. His victory confirmed the dominance of Talon’s political camp after a decade in power.
The move further weakens Benin’s opposition, which has struggled under political reforms introduced during Talon’s presidency. The government has defended the reforms as necessary to clean up political life, but critics say they have made it harder for opposition parties to compete.
The country’s main opposition force, the Democrats, was excluded from the presidential race after failing to secure the required backing to nominate a candidate. Analysts have described the election as taking place in a context of democratic backsliding, with institutional and legal changes narrowing the space for meaningful competition.
Once viewed as one of West Africa’s strongest democracies, Benin has faced growing criticism over the exclusion of opposition candidates, arrests of political figures and the concentration of power around the ruling coalition.
The FCBE’s decision leaves the Democrats as the main remaining opposition voice, while Wadagni prepares to inherit a political system firmly controlled by the outgoing president’s camp.
