COTONOU: Voters in Benin go to the polls on Sunday for a parliamentary election seen as a test of democracy as opposition parties are back on the ballot after boycotting or being excluded from the most recent presidential and legislative votes.
Benin’s image as a bastion of democracy and stability in West Africa has been dented under President Patrice Talon, who went back on a pledge not to run for another term and oversaw an opposition crackdown since coming to power in 2016.
Seven parties are competing for 109 parliamentary seats in Sunday’s vote, including the Democrates party linked to Talon’s predecessor and rival Thomas Boni Yayi. Boni Yayi’s supporters led protests in 2019 after opposition parties were blocked from the legislative vote for failing to meet strict new election criteria.
“I will vote for this party (the Democrates) for the rebalance of power,” said civil society activist Isidore Odountan, 31, in the largest city Cotonou.
Preliminary results, which are expected on Jan. 11, may also be an indicator of the strength of the various political forces jostling to succeed Talon. The next presidential election is due in 2026, when the next parliamentary vote will also be held.
Talon does not belong to any party but is supported by the two parties currently in power in parliament — the Bloc Republicain and Union Progressiste le Renouveau.
There is no immediate sign the vote will see protests like in 2019 or those that broke out in 2021 against Talon’s decision to seek re-election, said political analyst Expedit Ologou, head of Beninois thinktank Civic Academy for Africa’s Future.
“The atmosphere seems calm, peaceful, friendly, fraternal in most areas of the country,” he told Reuters.
Under Talon, the political protests have been met with deadly police violence, while politicized prosecutions and other legal tactics have been used to stifle the opposition, US democracy watchdog Freedom House said in its 2022 report.
Talon has denied targeting political opponents or violating human rights.
With more parties on the ballot, turnout should return to normal levels of around 60 percent after slumping to just 27 percent in 2019, Ologou said.
Regional security may be higher up voters’ concerns in this election as Benin, alongside neighboring Togo and Ivory Coast, has seen increasing attacks from militants linked to Al-Qaeda and Islamic State as violence creeps south from the Sahel countries of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
The insecurity and higher living costs linked to the war in Ukraine pose a threat to Benin’s recent economic gains, the International Monetary Fund warned last July.
Benin’s agriculture-dependent economy has rebounded since the coronavirus pandemic, growing over 7 percent in 2021 and the first half of 2022. But the country of 12 million remains one of the poorest in the world with a fifth of the population living on less than $1.90 per day, according to the World Bank.
Benin holds parliamentary election set to test democracy
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Benin holds parliamentary election set to test democracy
- Seven parties are competing for 109 parliamentary seats in Sunday’s vote, including the Democrates party linked to President Patrice Talon’s predecessor and rival
- Benin’s image as a bastion of democracy and stability in West Africa has been dented under President Talon
Chinese military jet crashes, pilot safely ejects
The southern command oversees some of the country’s most sensitive areas including the South China Sea
BEIJING: A Chinese naval fighter jet crashed on Saturday during a training exercise but its pilot successfully ejected from the plane, the military said.
The fighter jet, from the Chinese military’s Southern Theater Command, crashed in an open area in the southern island province of Hainan, the navy said in a statement on social media.
The southern command oversees some of the country’s most sensitive areas including the South China Sea, where there has been a spate of violent clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels in recent years around disputed reefs and islands in the area.
“The pilot successfully ejected, and no collateral damage was caused on the ground,” the statement said.
An investigation into the cause of the crash has been launched and the navy is organizing efforts to handle the aftermath, it added.
China has for years sought to expand its presence in contested areas of the sea, brushing aside an international ruling that its claim to most of the waterway has no legal basis.
In recent months, Beijing has more firmly asserted its territorial claims in the South China Sea, where countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines are defending their own claims.
Last month, the Philippine Coast Guard condemned “dangerous” maneuvers by a Chinese Navy helicopter it said had flown within meters of a surveillance flight carrying a group of journalists over the contested Scarborough Shoal.
Scholz calls on Russia to work toward ‘just peace’ in Ukraine
- “It is now up to Russia to put an end to its daily attacks,” Scholz said
BERLIN: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday called on Russia to finally work toward a just peace in Ukraine after three years of war.
“It is now up to Russia to put an end to its daily attacks against Ukrainian cities and civil infrastructure and to finally take the way of a lasting and just peace,” Scholz said in a statement after participating in a virtual summit hosted by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Pope Francis, showing plans to stay on, starts new Catholic reform process
- Francis approved the new process for reforms on Tuesday from Rome’s Gemelli hospital
- His friends and biographers have insisted, however, that he has no plans to step down
VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis approved a new three-year process to consider reforms for the global Catholic Church, the Vatican said on Saturday, in a sign the 88-year-old pontiff plans to continue on as pope despite his ongoing battle with double pneumonia.
Francis has extended the work of the Synod of Bishops, a signature initiative of his 12-year papacy, which has discussed reforms such as the possibility of women serving as Catholic deacons and better inclusion of LGBTQ people in the Church.
The synod, which held an inconclusive Vatican summit of bishops on the future of the Church last October, will now hold consultations with Catholics across the world for the next three years, before hosting a new summit in 2028.
Francis approved the new process for reforms on Tuesday from Rome’s Gemelli hospital, where he is being treated, the Vatican said on Saturday.
The pope has been in hospital for more than a month and his prolonged public absence has stoked speculation that he could choose to follow his predecessor Benedict XVI and resign from the papacy.
His friends and biographers have insisted, however, that he has no plans to step down. The approval of a new three-year process indicated he wants to continue on, despite his age and the possibility he might face a long, fraught road to recovery from pneumonia, given his age and other medical conditions.
“The Holy Father ... is helping push the renewal of the Church toward a new missionary impulse,” Cardinal Mario Grech, the official leading the reform process, told the Vatican’s media outlet. “This is truly a sign of hope.”
BRINGING CHURCH ‘UP TO DATE’
Francis, who has been pope since 2013, is widely seen as trying to open up the staid global Church to the modern world.
However, the pope’s reform agenda has upset some Catholics, including a few senior cardinals. They have accused him of watering down the Church’s teachings on issues such as same-sex marriage, and divorce and remarriage.
Massimo Faggioli, a US academic who has followed the papacy closely, said the new reform process is a way for the pope to signal that he is still the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
“Francis’ pontificate is not over, and this decision he just made for what happens between now and 2028 will have an effect on the rest of (it),” said Faggioli, a professor at Villanova University.
After last October’s inconclusive Vatican summit, which yielded no concrete action on possible reforms, Francis had faced questions of whether his papacy was running out of steam.
Vatican officials had said at the time that Francis was still considering future changes, and was waiting to receive a series of 10 expected reports about possible reforms this June.
The latest medical bulletins from the Vatican on the pope’s condition in hospital have said he is improving and is no longer in immediate danger of death.
They have not said when he will be discharged from hospital.
Well-wishers have been gathering to offer support for Francis outside the hospital each day during the pope’s recovery.
Stefania Gianni, an Italian being treated for cancer at the facility, said on Saturday that Francis “has taken great steps to bring the Church up to date with the times.”
“He is a great man and a great pope, and the Church still needs him,” she said.
Putin will have to ‘come to table,’ UK PM says hosting coalition call
- While Ukraine had shown it was the “party of peace” by agreeing to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire, “Putin is the one trying to delay,” Starmer said
- “If Putin is serious about peace, I think it’s very simple, he has to stop his barbaric attacks on Ukraine and agree to a ceasefire, and the world is watching“
LONDON: UK premier Keir Starmer said the “ball was in Russia’s court” and that President Vladimir Putin would “sooner or later” have to “come to the table,” after a virtual summit on Saturday to drum up support for a coalition willing to protect any eventual ceasefire in Ukraine.
The British prime minister told some 26 fellow leaders as they joined the group call hosted by Downing Street that they should focus on how to strengthen Ukraine, protect any ceasefire and keep up the pressure on Moscow.
While Ukraine had shown it was the “party of peace” by agreeing to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire, “Putin is the one trying to delay,” he said.
“If Putin is serious about peace, I think it’s very simple, he has to stop his barbaric attacks on Ukraine and agree to a ceasefire, and the world is watching,” he added.
Military chiefs will now meet again on Thursday in the UK as the coalition moves into “the operational phase,” Starmer said after the talks.
“The group that met this morning is a bigger group than we had two weeks ago, there is a stronger collective resolve and new commitments were put on the table this morning,” he added.
EU chief European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a message on X that Russia has to show “it is willing to support a ceasefire leading to a just and lasting peace.”
And Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof also said on X it was “now important to continue to exert pressure on Russia to come to the negotiating table.”
Overnight fighting continued in the relentless three-year war, with Russia saying it had taken two more villages in its Kursk border region where it has launched an offensive to wrest back seized territory.
As moves have gathered pace for a ceasefire, Moscow has pushed this week to retake a large part of the land that Ukraine originally captured in western Kursk.
But Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, who joined the talks, denied Saturday any “encirclement” of his troops in the Kursk region.
“Our troops continue to hold back Russian and North Korean groupings in the Kursk region,” he said on social media.
The Russian defense ministry said troops took control over the villages of Zaoleshenka and Rubanshchina — north and west of the town of Sudzha, the main town that Moscow reclaimed this week.
Kyiv meanwhile said its air force had overnight downed 130 Iranian-made Russian-launched Shahed drones over 14 regions of the country.
Putin has called on embattled Ukrainian troops in Kursk to “surrender,” while his US counterpart Donald Trump urged the Kremlin to spare their lives.
“The Kremlin’s complete disregard for President Trump’s ceasefire proposal only serves to demonstrate that Putin is not serious about peace,” Starmer said late Friday ahead of the call.
Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron have been leading efforts to assemble a so-called “coalition of the willing” ever since Trump opened direct negotiations with Moscow last month.
They say the group is necessary — along with US support — to provide Ukraine with security guarantees by deterring Putin from violating any ceasefire.
Starmer and Macron have said they are willing to put British and French troops on the ground in Ukraine but it is not clear if other countries are keen on doing the same.
Macron also called on Russia late Friday to accept the proposal for a ceasefire, and stop making statements aimed at “delaying the process.”
The French president also demanded that Moscow stop its “acts of violence” in Ukraine.
Germany on Friday likewise criticized Putin’s response to the US-proposed ceasefire in Ukraine as “at best a delaying tactic.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday he was “cautiously optimistic” about reaching a truce, but acknowledged there was “a lot of work that remains to be done.”
Starmer has said he welcomes any offer of support for the coalition, raising the prospect that some countries could contribute logistics or surveillance.
But Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni reiterated after the call, which she joined, that Italy’s “participation in a possible military force on the ground is not envisaged.”
British Commonwealth partners Canada, Australia and New Zealand have been involved in early talks and dialled into the summit.
NATO chief Mark Rutte and European Union chiefs von der Leyen and Antonio Costa also took part, along with the leaders of Germany, Spain, Portugal, Latvia, Romania, Turkiye and the Czech Republic among others.
Serbia’s capital braces for a major anti-government rally as tensions mount
- A deafening sound of whistles and vuvuzelas echoed throughout the Serbian capital, on high alert since the rally was announced
- It was probably the biggest anti-government rally ever held in the Balkan country
BELGRADE: Tens of thousands rallied on Saturday in downtown Belgrade against populist President Aleksandar Vucic and his government, the latest in a series of anti-corruption protests that have shaken his 13-year firm grip on power.
A deafening sound of whistles and vuvuzelas echoed throughout the Serbian capital, on high alert since the rally was announced, as people headed toward several agreed-on protest venues. Some carried banners that read, “He’s Finished!” Others chanted: “Pump it Up,” a slogan adopted during the four months of student-led protests.
It was probably the biggest anti-government rally ever held in the Balkan country.
”I expect that this will shake his authority and that Vucic will realize that people are no longer for him,” Milenko Kovacevic, a protester, said.
Reflecting mounting tensions, police said they arrested a man who rammed his car into protesters in a Belgrade suburb, injuring three people.
Ahead of the demonstration, Vucic repeatedly warned of alleged plans for unrest while threatening arrests and harsh sentences for any incidents.
In an apparent effort to prevent people from attending the rally, Belgrade city transport was canceled Saturday while huge columns of cars jammed the roads leading into the capital. The transport company said the cancelation was made “for security reasons.”
On Friday evening, tens of thousands of people staged a joyous welcome for the students who have been marching or cycling for days from across Serbia toward Belgrade for the main rally on Saturday afternoon. From early morning, people started assembling in various parts of the city, preparing to march toward the center.
Fueling fears of clashes, Vucic’s supporters have been camping in central Belgrade in front of his headquarters. The crowd included ex-members of a dreaded paramilitary unit involved in the assassination in 2003 of Serbia’s first democratic Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, as well as soccer hooligans who are known for causing violence.
Private N1 television on Saturday broadcast footage of dozens of young men with baseball caps going into the pro-Vucic camp.
Interior Minister Ivica Dacic told state RTS broadcaster that 13 people have been detained overnight but that no major incidents were reported on Friday. He said police detained six opposition activists for allegedly plotting to stage a coup and stir unrest on Saturday.
Protesting students have led the nationwide anti-graft movement, which started after a concrete canopy collapsed at a train station and killed 15 people in Serbia’s north on Nov. 1.
Many in Serbia blamed the crash on rampant government corruption, negligence and disrespect of construction safety regulations.
Vucic has been claiming that Western intelligence services were behind almost daily student-led protests with an aim to oust him from power.
Students have struck a chord among the citizens who are disillusioned with politicians and have lost faith in the state institutions. Previous student-led rallies in other Serbian cities have been peaceful while drawing huge crowds.
