Kémi Séba announces his candidacy for the 2026 presidential election in Benin

In a video speech lasting around ten minutes posted on his social networks on the afternoon of 5 January, he drew up a gloomy assessment of President Patrice Talon’s governance.

He accuses the Beninese president of favouring Western companies, particularly French ones, which benefit from numerous tax exemptions, while local companies are overtaxed.

According to the electoral code, presidential candidates must be nominated by a political party. Independent candidates are no longer permitted, and candidates must be sponsored by at least 28 elected representatives, either deputies or mayors, or both deputies and mayors.

Confronted with these obligations imposed by the electoral law, Mr Capo-Chichi is considering three options that could enable him to take part in the election.

If the first option does not work, he plans to create a broad coalition to demand a revision of the electoral code, which he describes as ‘corrupt’, with the sole aim of ‘excluding the real opponents’.

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Benin will hold municipal, legislative and presidential elections in 2026. Candidatures for the presidential election will be submitted in October 2025, six months before polling day.

The president, Patrice Talon, who is serving his second and final constitutional term, has stated on several occasions that he has no intention of amending the Constitution in order to stand for re-election.