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Elections for the National Revolutionary Assembly were held in Benin on 10 June 1984. They were originally scheduled for 1983, but the term of the Assembly was extended by 18 months. [1] At the time, the country was a one-party state under the People's Revolutionary Party of Benin, with voters given the choice of approving the party's list of 196 candidates (reduced from 336) or not. The list was ultimately approved by 98.2% of voters, with a 93.1% turnout. [2] Following the election, Mathieu Kérékou was elected President (unopposed) by the Assembly on 31 July. [3]
Benin, officially the Republic of Benin and formerly Dahomey, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. The majority of its population lives on the small southern coastline of the Bight of Benin, part of the Gulf of Guinea in the northernmost tropical portion of the Atlantic Ocean. The capital of Benin is Porto-Novo, but the seat of government is in Cotonou, the country's largest city and economic capital. Benin covers an area of 114,763 square kilometres (44,310 sq mi) and its population in 2016 was estimated to be approximately 10.87 million. Benin is a tropical nation, highly dependent on agriculture, with substantial employment and income arising from subsistence farming.
A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of state in which one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other parties are either outlawed or allowed to take only a limited and controlled participation in elections. Sometimes the term de facto one-party state is used to describe a dominant-party system that, unlike the one-party state, allows democratic multiparty elections, but the existing practices or balance of political power effectively prevent the opposition from winning the elections.
The People's Revolutionary Party of Benin was a political party in the People's Republic of Benin. It was founded in 1975 by General Mathieu Kérékou. With the new constitution of November 30, 1975, PRPB became the sole legal party in the country. Ideologically, the party was committed to Marxism-Leninism.
Choice | Votes | % | |
---|---|---|---|
Approve | 1,811,808 | 98.2 | |
Not approve | 27,720 | 1.9 | |
Abstain | 6,397 | 0.3 | |
Invalid or blank | 5,119 | – | |
Total | 1,851,044 | 100 | |
Registered voters/turnout | 1,987,173 | 93.1 | |
Source: Nohlen et al. |
Rather than geographical constituencies, seats were given to 22 professions. The largest number of seats (78) were held by "Peasants and craftsmen from rural areas". Also represented were mass organizations, the party (31 seats), civil servants (divided into six categories), the army (divided into privates, non-commissioned officers and officers ), workers, religious bodies, students, retired people, magistrates and the "national bourgeoisie". [1] Assembly members, known as "People's Commissioners", also had their terms extended from three to five years.
The Republic of Benin was formed in 1960 when the colony of French Dahomey gained independence from France. Prior to this, the area that is now the Republic of Benin was divided largely between two coastal kingdoms, Dahomey and Porto-Novo, and a large area of various tribes in the north. The French assembled these various groups together into the colony of French Dahomey, which was part of the various colonies of French West Africa from 1904 until 1960. In the independence era, the republic was extremely unstable for the first decade and a half of existence, with multiple governments and multiple military coups. In 1972, Mathieu Kérékou led a military coup deposing the Presidential Council and appointing himself as the head of state, a position he held until 1991 when the country returned to multiparty elections. Since that point, the state has held multiple presidential and legislative elections and a number of different parties have become important.
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