After excluding all credible opposition candidates President Patrice Talon won another five years in office with 86% of the vote according to provisional results released as Africa Confidential went to press...

Béninois voters can have any president they like – so long as it is Patrice Talon...

Benin is planning to close 24 of its 27 embassies around the world in the second major retrenchment of the country's diplomatic corps since President Patrice Talon took office Africa Confidential has learned...

The main target is Benin where President Patrice Talon's government has been seen as facilitating rice smuggling from south-east Asia bringing cargoes across the border...

Although final details of a controversial constitutional reform are yet to be confirmed President Patrice Talon has maintained a hardline stance on controversial constitutional reforms and rebuffed an effort by his predecessor Thomas Boni Yayi to find compromise...

Most of the big opposition parties boycotted the political dialogue called by President Patrice Talon on 7 October to defuse the crisis triggered by his exclusion of some of the country's most prominent politicians from the parliamentary elections in April...

It also hits the finances of the Benin government and President Patrice Talon's own business empire; the president's personal interests are now central to the national economy...

President Patrice Talon continues to rebuff calls for a rerun of the 28 April parliamentary polls which were marked by a meagre 23% turnout after opposition parties were excluded (AC Vol 60 No 9 Talon turns back the clock)...

After almost three decades as an admired pioneer of democratic freedom in francophone Africa Benin has just conducted a parliamentary election from which all parties were excluded save for the two backed by President Patrice Talon...