Benin PM Zinsou to face businessman Patrice Talon in runoff

Benin’s Prime Minister Lionel Zinsou gained 28.4 percent of votes in the country’s presidential election and will face a runoff against prominent businessman Patrice Talon, results from the national electoral commission showed on Tuesday.

Benin PM Zinsou to face run-off in presidential election https://t.co/vz4eTCCuTd

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Sunday’s election, which was contested by 33 candidates, is to choose a successor to President Thomas Boni Yayi, who is stepping down from power in the small West African state after two terms as mandated by the constitution.

Voting closed Sunday evening with a few incidences noted though there were some reports that the ink applied to voters was not visible enough according to witnesses who spoke to Reuters.

No reports of violence was reported throughout the whole exercise.

Ans as per the initial results, outgoing Prime Minister Lionel Zinsou and Patrice Talon were leading the first round, with 856 218 and 746,798 votes respectively.

These first results are only ‘megatrends’ as provided in Article 15 of the Electoral Code, according to Emmanuel Tiando, the Chairman of the Electoral Commission. However it’s the Constitutional Court that will proclaim the official and final provisional results.

The electoral commision was meant to announce the results. The commission reported a 64.03% voter turnout of the 4.7 million voters.