Presidential poll to go to second round - official

Political newcomer and former banker Boni Yayi, and veteran politician and lawyer Adrien Houngbedji are to face off in the race to become Benin’s next president in a second round run-off vote, the Constitutional Court said on Wednesday. Official results showed Yayi led the field of 26 contenders in the 5 March first round to win 35.64 percent of the vote. Houngbedji garnered 24.12 percent, the court said. Court President Conceptia Ouinsou said the body had deemed the poll fair. “The delays and few irregularities observed are not of a nature to cause the cancellation of the 5 March poll,” she said. The court’s final figures however said that of the 3,917,865 eligible voters, 3,200,944 - more than 80 percent - had cast votes but that 3,014,167 ballots were counted, meaning there were some 186,000 spoilt ballot papers. The court said it was leaving five days for appeals and complaints and that the government would subsequently set a date for the final run-off round. Both Yayi and Houngbedji have said they will campaign for change, a word on everybody’s lips as the election brings down the curtain on almost three decades in office for incumbent Mathieu Kerekou. The former military ruler introduced multi-party politics in 1991 and since has held two successive mandates which, along with his age, means that under the constitution he cannot run for office again. The third and fourth-placed candidates, Bruno Amoussou, who garnered 16.22 percent of the vote, and Lehady Soglo, who won 8.40 percent, are expected to be the kingmakers in the election. Yayi, who is 54 and who last month resigned from his job as chairman of the Togo-based West African Development Bank (BOAD), is an independent running with the support of a coalition of groups and parties. Houngbedji, the 64-year-old leader of the Democratic Renewal Party, is a veteran politician who twice served as speaker of parliament.