Benin Leader Hopes Polls Will Strengthen His Rule

People queued outside polling stations in Benin on Saturday for parliamentary elections.

Which President Thomas Boni Yayi hopes will strengthen his control of the national assembly a year into his first term.

Yayi, a former banker elected in March last year, wants the polls to consolidate his position and help him fight corruption in the former French colony, one of the more stable democracies in turbulent West Africa.

"We're very satisfied with the turn out so far. Apart from a slight delay opening, everything is going well," Jean Loko, head of a polling booth in the northern town of Parakou, said shortly after voting began.

A similarly strong early turn-out was reported in the capital Porto Novo although the queues were smaller in the main port city of Cotonou, residents said.

Although campaigning has largely gone smoothly, Yayi says his fight against graft provoked an assassination bid in which gunmen attacked his convoy this month while he was canvassing.

Yayi escaped unhurt after the attack. Aides said the car hit by the gunfire was in the position normally occupied by the vehicle carrying the head of state, but its order in the convoy happened to have been changed.

Yayi's election a year ago marked the end of three decades of domineering rule by a small political elite in the cotton-producing country, where a third of the population live below the poverty line and unemployment is rife.

He replaced former Marxist Mathieu Kerekou, an ex-army major who led Benin for all but five of the previous 33 years.

"The president will be keen for his party to gain a majority in parliament to enable him to push through the reforms he promised as well as to see a credible election process, which will bolster his legitimacy," research group Global Insight said in a recent note.

The parliamentary polls were originally due to be held last Sunday but were postponed after days of wrangling in the electoral commission, including workers demanding advance payment, which meant ballot papers were not ready in time.

Previous elections have been tarnished with fraud claims and organisational problems since Kerekou introduced multi-party democracy in 1991, although the country has been more peaceful than most of its neighbours in recent years.

Voters will choose 83 members of parliament from 2,158 candidates representing some 26 political parties and alliances in the poll