MS Risk Blog

Benin Presidential Election Heads to Run-off

On Tuesday, 8 March, Benin’s national electoral commission indicated that the West African country’s Prime Minister Lionel Zinsou gained 28.4 percent of votes in the presidential election, which was held on Sunday.

The Prime Minister will face a run-off against prominent businessman Patrice Talon. Both Zinsou and Talon will now have to compete for the support of the candidates who came in third and below. The provisional results, released by the electoral commission, must be confirmed by the constitutional court and a challenge by one of the candidates appeared possible, not least because Sebastien Ajavon won 23.03 percent of the votes to finish just behind Talon. While a date for the run-off has not been announced, it may take place on 20 March.

Sunday’s election, which was contested by thirty-three candidates, is to choose a successor to President Thomas Boni Yayi, who is stepping down from power after two terms as mandated by the country’s constitution.

Benin Heads to the Polls to Elect New President in Stark Contrast to Other African Countries

On Sunday, 6 March Benin went to the polls to choose a new president from a record field of 33 candidates, but with concerns about the distribution of voters’ cards, which had already forced a two-week delay.

Polling began at 0600 GMT in Benin, with international observers assessing the atmosphere as “very calm and very relaxed.” Voting was due to end nine hours later. According to Mathieu Boni, an official from a civil society group that has deployed more than 3,000 election observers, “more than half” of the nearly 8,000 polling stations opened on time. The first results are expected to be released within 72 hours of the vote.

President Thomas Boni Yayi is due to step down after serving a maximum two five-year terms, effectively marking him out amongst some African leaders who have tried to change constitutions in order to ensure third terms in office.  While Benin has not seen the levels of political tension that have plagued other recent votes across the country, including in Burundi and Rwanda, where leaders have tested constitutional limits in a bid to stand for a third term, there are concerns that frustrations could rise because of delays in distributing voting cards that have already held up the vote by one week. According to Fidele Marcos, who heads Amnesty International’s Benin branch, “the problem is that many of the old cards had problems that weren’t addressed.” As of Friday, voter identification cards has not been distributed in two of Benin’s twelve administrative districts, where nearly 700,000 voters live.

Campaigning has centered largely on the unemployment, education and economic growth, which has slackened as plummeting oil prices hit Benin’s much larger neighbor and main trading partner, Nigeria. Leading the field is Prime Minister Lionel Zinsou, a former economist and investment banker who has received public backing from both the president and the main opposition Democratic Renewal party (PRD). He however faces strong opposition inside the ruling Cowry Forces for an Emerging Benin (FCBE) party and from trade unions who say that, having spent much of his life away from Benin’s politics in France, he is an outsider and a poor choice to lead. Other top candidates include ex-prime minister Pascal Irenee Koupaki, Abdoulaye Bio Tchane, a former senior official at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and prominent businessmen Sebastien Ajavon and Patrice Talon. Tchane has promised to create 500,00 jobs every year of the five-year term, while Ajavon states that he will reduce youth unemployment through the creation of business incubators. Both Zinsou and Talon have pledged to reform Benin’s education system. If no candidate wins an outright majority in the first round of polling on Sunday, then the top two finishers will progress on a run-off vote within fifteen days.

Prominent indigenous and environmental rights campaigner in Honduras shot dead in her home

Around 1am on March 3 renowned Honduran environmental and indigenous rights campaigner Berta Cáceres was shot dead by armed assailants at her home in La Esperanza, in Intibucá department, Honduras.

The high-profile murder has sparked international outrage and underlines the significant threats facing social campaigners in one of the world’s most dangerous countries. While Honduras is no stranger to high levels of violent crime, with one of the highest homicide rates globally, few are likely to take seriously any suggestion that Cáceres’ murder was a random act of violent crime.

The campaigner had received multiple death threats in recent years, primarily concerning her involvement in the campaign to halt the development of the partially internationally funded Agua Zarca Damn. In a country where 101 environmental campaigners were killed between 2010-2014,[1] she was aware of the vulnerable nature of her safety. According to local sources, the assailants broke into her house after she had gone to sleep and questions have arisen as to why there was no security service protection. In 2015 the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) formally called on President Hernández’ government to ensure the protection of Cáceres and other human rights defenders by ensuring precautionary measures. Its failure to do so has sparked widespread criticism from local and international groups, and calls on the government to fully investigate the murder. Yet, impunity remains one of the key challenges in the embattled country, where according to former Attorney General Luis Rubí, more than 90% of crimes go unpunished.

Cáceres was a campaigner for the Lenca indigenous peoples, and in 1993 co-founded the COPINH (Civic Council of Indigenous Organisations in Honduras). In recent years COPINH has been campaigning for the rights of the Lenca community and ensuring the right to free-prior and informed consent before a government/or private company can develop their land, as outlined by the ILO, which Honduras is a signatory too. In particular, Cáceres vociferously campaigned against the Agua Zarca Damn, one of Central America’s biggest hydropower projects in the Gualcarque. The damn is a joint project between Honduran Desarrollos Energéticos SA (DESA) and Chinese state-owned Sinohydro – the world’s largest dam developer.

Following the ousting of former president Zelaya in 2009, the government has pushed through numerous damn and agricultural projects to make way for major extractives investment in the country, an area they claim is necessary to aid the country’s flailing economy, and raise revenues to tackle major social issues. However, many opponents argue this has been done without proper legislation, information and local engagement, and that those who have spoken out have found themselves at the end of the barrel of a gun, with little investigation carried out by the authorities. Speaking about its 2015 report into this, a Global Witness representative called on governments across Latin America to tackle this regional issue more seriously, claiming that rampant impunity allows perpetrators to get away with it, and that the problem is widespread across the region.

On the evening of 3 March violent clashes broke out in the capital Tegucigalpa, where students accused the government of failing to protect the activist by ensuring basic security measures. The protest voice also points to the complex nature of foreign investment in projects with high social risks if effective due diligence is not carried out. The Dutch development bank and other international lenders have come under increasing pressure to pull out of the highly politicised damn project. Cáceres won the prestigious 2015 Goldman award for her grass-roots environmental campaigning, which had placed the issue onto an international stage and raised her global profile and that of her campaign. This is likely to ensure that the government will come under the scrutiny of global investigation watchdogs to investigate the murder fully.

[1] As recorded by the International NGO Global Witness in a 2015 report.

Benin Set to Vote for New President on 5 March

On Sunday, Benin will vote for a new president in a crowded race that is focused on boosting the flagging economy. However logistical problems may keep hundreds of thousands from casting their ballots.

Current President Thomas Boni Yayi is stepping down after two terms in office, leaving thirty-three candidates vying to replace him. While Benin has not seen the levels of political tension that have plagued other recent votes across the country, including in Burundi and Rwanda, where leaders have tested constitutional limits in a bid to stand for a third term, there are concerns that frustrations could rise because of delays in distributing voting cards that have already held up the vote by one week. According to Fidele Marcos, who heads Amnesty International’s Benin branch, “the problem is that many of the old cards had problems that weren’t addressed.” As of Friday, voter identification cards has not been distributed in two of Benin’s twelve administrative districts, where nearly 700,000 voters live.

Campaigning has centered largely on the unemployment, education and economic growth, which has slackened as plummeting oil prices hit Benin’s much larger neighbor and main trading partner, Nigeria. Leading the field is Prime Minister Lionel Zinsou, a former economist and investment banker who has received public backing from both the president and the main opposition Democratic Renewal party (PRD). He however faces strong opposition inside the ruling Cowry Forces for an Emerging Benin (FCBE) party and from trade unions who say that, having spent much of his life away from Benin’s politics in France, he is an outsider and a poor choice to lead. Other top candidates include ex-prime minister Pascal Irenee Koupaki, Abdoulaye Bio Tchane, a former senior official at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and prominent businessmen Sebastien Ajavon and Patrice Talon. Tchane has promised to create 500,00 jobs every year of the five-year term, while Ajavon states that he will reduce youth unemployment through the creation of business incubators. Both Zinsou and Talon have pledged to reform Benin’s education system. If no candidate wins an outright majority in the first round of polling on Sunday, then the top two finishers will progress on a run-off vote within fifteen days.               

The Threat of Russian Hybrid Warfare

On several occasions lately it has been reported that there is a concern with Russia possibly conducting a so called hybrid warfare on European countries. In Finland the flow of migrants coming from the Middle East via Russia is what some consider a form of hybrid warfare. Military researcher Antti Paronen says the vast numbers of asylum-seekers in Europe could be used as a means to keep the Finns and European West off balance and push certain pressure points. Parallels have been drawn between the Somali migrants that overwhelmed Finland after the break-up of the Soviet Union, and the alleged trafficking situation with Afghani migrants that is going on presently in Finnish Lappland. Steering the flow of mass migration is a typical method in the arsenal of the so-called “grey phase” of hybrid warfare. To the Bulgarians the concept of hybrid warfare also include cyber-crime. The Defence Minister, Nikolay Nenchev, has noted that state institutions are taking cyber-crimes more seriously. This comes at a time when attacks have increased lately. Bulgarian institutions such as the National Revenue Agency and the Education Ministry have reportedly been targets of repeated hack attacks over the past months. These attacks have been linked to Russia, by Ukrainian news agencies. Chief of Defence of the Bulgarian Armed Forces has warned that the line between peace and war in the case of hybrid wars is not always clear, and that this is a dangerous thing and often a challenge for states. At the same time, the Latvians have also spotted signs of hybrid warfare directed at them, allegedly from Russia. Instead of migrant flows or cyber-crime the Latvians are considering propaganda. This is not a concern of Latvia alone, but affects several countries throughout Europe. The director of the Latvia-based NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, has said that indications of ongoing hybrid warfare are becoming stronger in Central Europe and Scandinavia. Despite cuts to the Russian budget, propaganda projects like the Kremlin-funded Sputnik news agency, which recently opened a Latvian branch, is still receiving government funds. This could be a signal of an increased Russian budget for producing and using state-propaganda. Sputnik set up a website in Latvian in early February, 2016. The Latvian Security Police said it serves as evidence to Russian attempts to spread propaganda. Such websites can be blocked but there are always tricks to bypass such blocks, not to mention that this might bring up some questions about democratic values. Therefore encouraging people to ignore the websites is the best thing to do as of now. That seems to be where the challenge lies in the case of so called hybrid warfare, because of its nature there is no obvious way to counter it. There is no discussion that adversaries have developed creative uses of the “full-spectrum” of warfare, including the use of regular and irregular tactics across all dimensions of war. In the last decade, some of the most important military forces and coalitions in the world, have attempted to address and counter so-called hybrid threats. This has turned out to be difficult, mostly because there is no agreed upon definition of the word hybrid. It is widely understood as a mixture or a blend of conventional/unconventional, regular/irregular, and information and cyber warfare. In theory any strategy of conducting warfare can be hybrid as long as it is not limited to a single method. Perhaps it is unnecessary to define it, but rather a need to consider war for the complexity that it is and counter each strategy with the appropriate counter measure. Hybrid defence for hybrid threats.