By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Presidential election will take place on Sunday in Benin, with the country’s Finance Minister, Romuald Wadagni expected expected to make the leap from behind-the-scenes technocrat to head of state.
A former Deloitte executive, Wadagni 49 has spent the past decade implementing the economic agenda of outgoing President Patrice Talon, who is barred by constitutional term limits from running again.
His campaign points to achievements include tripling the national budget and posting cotton-exporting Benin’s highest GDP growth rates in more than two decades.
Talon’s tenure has featured a consolidation of power within the presidency easing Wadagni’s path to power, amidst a weakened opposition.
Since his emergence as the ruling party candidate last September, Wadagni has played down the idea of any major break from the man with whom he shares, as he told French magazine “Jeune Afrique” last month, “almost like a father-and-son relationship”, in reference to the outgoing President Talon.
He has proposed creating new development hubs across the country, to better distribute industrial and tourism investments and expanding access to health care, while touting the benefits of continuity from one government to the next.
Under Talon “I had the honour of managing one of your most precious assets: your money,” Wadagni told supporters in March.
If elected president, “I will do the job with the same seriousness and dedication.”
Disgruntled soldiers had in the early hours of December 7 attempted a coup, temporarily seizing the state television network and getting close enough to Talon that he witnessed clashes firsthand.
Nigeria carried out airstrikes and the West African regional bloc ECOWAS deployed elements of its standby force to keep Talon in office. About 100 alleged coup participants are in jail awaiting trial.
The coup plotters said they were motivated in part by the government’s “neglect” of soldiers on the frontline in the north, a region ravaged by jihadist attacks.
Wadagni was born on June 20, 1976, in Lokossa, in southern Benin, and studied management, financing and auditing at Grenoble School of Management in France before joining Deloitte, where he became a partner. He has also attended courses at Harvard in the U.S.
His campaign, seeking to fend off doubts about his ties to Benin after many years abroad, has emphasised his “deep roots” in the country and his “ordinary Beninese childhood”.
Under Talon, the political opposition has been steadily weakened, making Wadagni’s victory all but guaranteed.
He is facing off against just one candidate: Paul Hounkpe of the Cowry Forces for an Emerging Benin party, who maintains that most citizens are not benefiting from Talon’s high GDP growth and flashy tourism projects.
