Kémi Séba declares himself a candidate for the 2026 presidential election

Kémi Séba declares himself a candidate for the 2026 presidential election
Kémi Séba declares himself a candidate for the 2026 presidential election

AA / Cotonou / Abraham Kwame

Pan-Africanist activist and leader Stellio Gilles Robert Capo-Chichi, better known as Kémi Séba, declares himself a candidate for the April 2026 presidential election in Benin.

In a ten-minute video speech broadcast on the afternoon of January 5 on his social networks, he gave a very gloomy assessment of the governance of President Patrice Talon.

“Benin is experiencing an unprecedented social crisis, a social crisis that favors the richest while almost all of the people live in conditions that are beyond comprehension,” says Kémi Séba.

He accuses the Beninese president of making life difficult for Beninese economic operators while Western companies have all the advantages. “French companies massively control the Beninese economy, needless to say that most of them are exempt from numerous taxes, a luxury that Beninese companies cannot afford, which are overtaxed,” notes the president of the NGO ‘Pan-Africanist Emergencies’.

According to the electoral code, candidates for the presidential election must necessarily be presented by a political party. Independent candidates are no longer admitted and candidates must be sponsored by at least 28 elected officials, deputies or mayors or even deputies and mayors at the same time.

Faced with these obligations of the electoral law, Capo-Chichi provides three options that could allow him to participate in the election.

“The first option will be for the opposition party Les Démocrates of former president Boni Yayi to nominate us for the 2026 presidential election, because it is the only opposition political party which has the number of sponsorships enough to access the elections,” explains Kémi Séba.

If the first option does not work, he plans to create a grand coalition to demand the revision of the electoral code which he describes as “corrupt” with the sole objective of “excluding real opponents”.

“The last option, some might say the most important, is a triangulation of forces called Operation Jericho which will be based on a tripartite basis. A logic of mobilization, popular protest, and an assumption of responsibility by those who are empowered in the country to turn things around so that the people can regain power,” warns Kémi Séba who ends his speech of around ten minutes with the slogan “Free Benin or death, we will win”.

In 2026 Benin will organize municipal, legislative and presidential elections. The submission of candidacies for the presidential election will be done in October 2025, six months before voting day.

President Patrice Talon, who is in his second and last constitutional mandate, has declared several times that he does not intend to amend the fundamental law in order to run again.

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