Ten years after taking office, outgoing Beninese President Patrice Talon on Thursday delivered a farewell message to the nation ahead of handing over power to his successor, Romuald Wadagni.<\/p>\n
Talon\u2019s successor won the presidential election in the first round with 94.27% of the vote.<\/p>\n
Just days before the inauguration ceremony, Talon addressed the Beninese people in what marked the closing chapter of a decade in power, following an electoral transition whose regularity was endorsed by the constitutional court.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I prepare to leave office, I would like to thank you wholeheartedly and tell you how proud I am of you for the demanding path we dared to take together over the past ten years,\u201d Talon said, referring to the \u201cchallenges overcome, the reforms implemented and the major projects launched to strengthen our state.\u201d<\/p>\n
A businessman before entering politics, Talon came to power in 2016 and went on to leave a lasting mark on Benin\u2019s political landscape through a series of institutional and economic reforms.<\/p>\n
His presidency was characterised by large-scale infrastructure programmes, administrative modernisation policies and economic performances praised by international partners.<\/p>\n
His record, however, remains contested by sections of the opposition and civil society, particularly following the exclusion of Les D\u00e9mocrates from the 2026 presidential race over sponsorship requirements, as well as the adoption in November 2025 of a constitutional reform extending the presidential term to seven years.<\/p>\n
In its April 16 ruling, the constitutional court confirmed the victory of the Wadagni\u2013Chabi Talata ticket with 4,515,449 votes, representing 94.27% of valid ballots cast. Final voter turnout stood at 63.57%.<\/p>\n
The outgoing president also extended his \u201cbest wishes for success\u201d to Wadagni for \u201cthe next seven years,\u201d expressing confidence that Benin would continue its progress toward becoming \u201ca great nation\u201d under the stewardship of its new leader.<\/p>\n
Romuald Wadagni is scheduled to be sworn in on Sunday, May 24, becoming Benin\u2019s fourth president since the return to democracy in 1990.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ten years after taking office, outgoing Beninese President Patrice Talon on Thursday delivered a farewell message to the nation ahead of handing over power to his successor, Romuald Wadagni. Talon\u2019s successor won the presidential election in the first round with 94.27% of the vote. Just days before the inauguration ceremony, Talon addressed the Beninese people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18872,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"APA News","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,27],"tags":[512,389,4380],"class_list":["post-20942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-west-africa","tag-benin","tag-patrice-talon","tag-romuald-wadagni"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20943,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20942\/revisions\/20943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}