The Benin National Autonomous Election Commission, CENA, has declared Kossi Mbueke Romuald, 49, the ruling Coalition’s candidate and Finance Minister for the past 10 years, winner of the 12 April 2026 presidential election with 94.05% of the vote.
According to the Commission, based on the processed returns from 90.55% of votes in Benin’s 12 Administrative Departments and the Diaspora, Wadagni polled 4,252,347 votes against the opposition candidate Paul Hounkpe’s 269,433 or 5.95% of the 4,522756 total valid votes cast from the 7,897,287 registered voters.
The Commission said these figures represented a 58.75% voter turnout.
Even before the declaration of the provisional results, which have to be certified by the Constitutional Court, Hounkpe had conceded defeat, based on his observation of the balloting trend.
Benin has a unique voter registration system, which automatically adds the name of every citizen aged 18 years and above to the voter’s roll, unlike in most other countries, where citizens register themselves to vote.
The National Agency for the Identification of Persons, ANIP, says it is addressing the challenge of removing the names of the dead from the voter’s roll, following questions raised by civil society and the opposition about citizen participation and voter turnout figures in elections.
The CENA puts the voter turnout in the 2016 presidential election at 68% and 36% for the 11 January 2026 parliamentary and municipal elections.
The Benin presidential election took place amid far-reaching constitutional reforms and a drastic reduction in the number of political parties, with the opposition alleging exclusion and the shrinking of the civic space.
The presidential election result followed a similar pattern with the January 11 elections, which saw the ruling Coalition winning all the 109 parliamentary seats.
