BENIN’S National Assembly has extended the presidential tenure from five to seven years and established a bicameral parliament.
The development was announced on Saturday, November 15, in a statement posted on the official Facebook page of the Assemblée Nationale du Bénin.
Lawmakers passed the bill during a plenary session held on Friday at the Palace of the Governors in Porto-Novo.
According to the statement posted in French, translated using Google Translate, 90 deputies voted in favour of the amendment while 19 opposed it, effectively altering the country’s 1990 Constitution, last revised in 2019.
“The Deputies of the 9th Legislature… adopted by 90 votes for and 19 against, the law modifying the Constitution of the Republic of Bénin,” the Assembly said.
The chamber explained that, in compliance with Article 154, the proposal first required a three-quarters majority in a preliminary vote. Legislators met this threshold with 87 votes for and 22 against before proceeding to the final secret ballot.
Fifteen new articles were introduced and 18 amended. One of the most consequential changes appears in the revised Article 42, which now provides: “The President of the Republic is elected by direct universal suffrage for a term of seven years, renewable only once. No one may, in his or her lifetime, serve more than two terms as President of the Republic.”
Another major reform is the creation of a bicameral parliament. Under the updated Article 79, legislative authority and oversight of the executive will now be exercised by two chambers — the National Assembly and a newly created Senate.
The amendment also sets a seven-year renewable term for deputies under Article 80. It further introduces an anti-defection clause mandating that any lawmaker who resigns from the party that sponsored their election automatically forfeits their seat.
Accordingly, Article 113.1 defines the Senate as an institution charged with regulating political life and safeguarding national unity, development, territorial defence, public security, democracy, and peace.
The law also extends the tenure of mayors and municipal councillors to seven years, renewable.
Nurudeen Akewushola is an investigative reporter and fact-checker with The ICIR. He believes courageous in-depth investigative reporting is the key to social justice, accountability and good governance in society. You can reach him via nyahaya@icirnigeria.org and @NurudeenAkewus1 on Twitter.