Former Prime Minister Lionel Zinsou was sentenced on Friday, August 2, in Cotonou to five years of ineligibility and six months of suspended imprisonment for the use of false documents in a trial, which lasted two months and at which he did not not participated. He is accused of having masked his overruns of the 2016 election campaign by using "false certificates or a falsified certificate," notes a judicial source. He is also fined 50 million CFA francs, the highest expected for this fraud.
Lionel Zinsou, one of the main opponents of the current president Patrice Talon, would have exceeded for the 2016 presidential campaign the ceiling authorized by the electoral code of 2.5 billion CFA francs (nearly 4 million euros). He immediately expressed his intention to appeal this conviction. "I knew what to expect," said the politician and banker contacted by France 24. "I'm calm, my lawyers and I decided to appeal and once we exhausted domestic remedies, we will go to the African Court of Human Rights in Arusha. "
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"There was no evidence in this case," responded Robert Dossou, his lawyer, interviewed by Jeune Afrique. "When you condemn someone for 'false', the least you can do is produce a supposedly 'false' document. But this has not been the case here, "he denounces. For the lawyer, "the justice has been instrumentalized in the file and the objective is to render ineligible all those who would be likely to be competitors to Patrice Talon".
"We do not understand this sentence of justice. It is up to the Court of Auditors of the Supreme Court to find that the campaign costs are exceeded. It is she who must then seize the prosecutor. However, in 2016, the Court of Auditors never reported irregularities in the accounts of Lionel Zinsou, "said Steve Kpoton, lawyer and political analyst.
The government, for its part, recalls the independence of the judiciary. "There are files of public order that the public prosecutor can seize. In any case, the government does not comment on court decisions. She did her job. It is noted, "Wilfried Léandre Houngbedji, communication director of Benin's presidency, told France 24.
Authoritative turn of Patrice Talon
Lionel Zinsou had already been targeted, in April 2018, by a complaint related to the repayment of a loan of 15 billion CFA francs (23 million euros) contracted during the campaign with Burkinabe businessman Mahamadou Bonkoungou, leader of the Ebomaf company. The latter has since won several large contracts with the State of Benin and in August 2018 withdrew his complaint.
He is not the first Beninese political opponent to be sentenced by justice and forced to go into exile. The opponent Sebastien Ajavon, who came third in the 2016 presidential election, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in a dark case of cocaine trafficking, judged in a few days by a special court, after a first court acquitted him . He finally won in April at the African Court of Human Rights, which condemned the State of Benin for violating "the right of the applicant to be tried by a competent court".
For Steve Kpoton, "getting rid of political rivals has become a fad in the subregion. Macky Sall dismissed his main opponents in Senegal to be re-elected in February 2019. And Mahamadou Issoufou dismissed his rival Hama Amadou in 2016 in Niger. It will be necessary to worry for the democracy in Francophone Africa ". "If you have a phobia of the threat that is the opposition you systematically carry out political eliminations," said Lionel Zinsou.
"Five years is not enough"
At the end of June, former Beninese President Thomas Boni Yayi, who had violently condemned the parliamentary elections held in April 2019 and to which the opposition was unable to submit lists, was forced into exile to an unknown destination after two months of siege of the police around his home.
Demonstrations also broke out between early May and mid-June in opposition strongholds and were repressed in the blood, killing around 10 people.
At the end of July, the Minister of Justice signed a decree prohibiting the issuance of any administrative document (identity card, passport, tax clearance, ...) to any person subject to legal proceedings, who would not show up at police summons . A list of several hundred people known as "wanted" was published on the website of the Ministry of Justice, with the mention of their alleged crime or offense. Among them are several political figures, including two former ministers, former deputies and the former mayor of Cotonou, accused of evading justice of the country.
For Vincent Foly, editorialist and editor of The New Tribune, this decree is a new manifestation of the "stranglehold" of Patrice Talon on the country. "It makes decisions that, seemingly nothing, target opponents," analyzes the political commentator in an interview with AFP.
However, Patrice Talon had argued for a constitutional reform aimed at instituting a single presidential term. "There is no longer a shadow of doubt that the head of state wants to represent in 2021, Vincent Foly concludes.He realized that five years was not enough."