Mathieu Kérékou (; 2 September 1933 – 14 October 2015) was a
Benin
Benin ( , ; french: Bénin , ff, Benen), officially the Republic of Benin (french: République du Bénin), and formerly Dahomey, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the north ...
ese politician who served as
President of Benin
The president of Benin () is both head of state and head of government in Benin. The Cabinet of Benin is under the authority of the President, and serves to advise and help formulate strategies. It also liaises with ministries and other governme ...
from 1972 to 1991 and again from 1996 to 2006.
After seizing power in a military coup, he ruled the country for 19 years, for most of that time under an officially
Marxist–Leninist
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialect ...
ideology, before he was stripped of his powers by the National Conference of 1990. He was defeated in the
1991 presidential election but was returned to the presidency in the
1996 election and controversially
re-elected in 2001.
Military background
Kérékou was born in 1933 in
Kouarfa village,
["Après 29 ans de pouvoir, le Président Kérékou tire sa révérence"](_blank)
IRIN, 6 April 2006 . in north-west
French Dahomey
French Dahomey was a French colony and part of French West Africa from 1894 to 1958. After World War II, by the establishment of the French Fourth Republic in 1947, Dahomey became part of the French Union with an increased autonomy. On 4 Octob ...
. After having studied at military schools in modern-day Mali and Senegal,
Kérékou served in the military by joining the French Army in 1960. Following independence, from 1961 to 1963 he was an ''
aide-de-camp'' to Dahomeyan President
Hubert Maga
Coutoucou Hubert Maga (August 10, 1916 – May 8, 2000) was a politician from Dahomey (now known as Benin).Dahomey was renamed Benin in 1975. Se''New York Times'' obituary He arose on a political scene where one's power was dictated by what regi ...
.
Following
Maurice Kouandété
Iropa Maurice Kouandété (22 September 1932 – 7 April 2003) was a military officer and politician in Benin (known as Dahomey until 1975). He was born to Somba parents in the Gaba District of Dahomey. Kouandété enrolled in the army in ...
's coup d'état in December 1967, Kérékou, who was his cousin,
['Kunle Amuwo, "The State and the Politics of Democratic Consolidation in Benin, 1990–1999", in ''Political Liberalization and Democratization in Africa'' (2003), ed. Ihonvbere and Mbaku. .] was made chairman of the Military Revolutionary Council.[ After Kérékou attended French military schools from 1968 to 1970,][ Maga made him a major, deputy chief of staff, and commander of the Ouidah paratroop unit.][
]
1972 coup and single-party rule
Kérékou seized power in Dahomey
The Kingdom of Dahomey () was a West African kingdom located within present-day Benin that existed from approximately 1600 until 1904. Dahomey developed on the Abomey Plateau amongst the Fon people in the early 17th century and became a region ...
in a military coup
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such ...
on 26 October 1972, ending a system of government in which three members of a presidential council were to rotate power (earlier in the year Maga had handed over power to Justin Ahomadegbé).[Samuel Decalo, "Benin: First of the New Democracies", in ''Political Reform in Francophone Africa'' (1997), ed. Clark and Gardinier. .]
During his first two years in power, Kérékou expressed only nationalism and said that the country's revolution would not "burden itself by copying foreign ideology ... We do not want communism or capitalism or socialism. We have our own Dahomean social and cultural system." On 30 November 1974, however, he announced the adoption of Marxism-Leninism by the state. The country was renamed from the Republic of Dahomey
The Republic of Dahomey (french: République du Dahomey; ), simply known as Dahomey, was established on 4 December 1958, as a self-governing colony within the French Community. Prior to attaining autonomy, it had been French Dahomey, part of ...
to the People's Republic of Benin a year later; the banks and petroleum industry
The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry or the oil patch, includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transportation (often by oil tankers and pipelines), and marketing of petroleum products. The larges ...
were nationalized. The People's Revolutionary Party of Benin
The People's Revolutionary Party of Benin (french: Parti de la Révolution Populaire du Bénin) 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 30 November ...
(''Parti de la révolution populaire du Bénin'', PRPB) was established as the sole ruling party. In 1980, Kérékou was elected president by the Revolutionary National Assembly; he retired from the army in 1987.[Abiodun Onadipe]
"The return of Africa's old guard – former African leaders, mostly dictators, bid for a return to power"
''Contemporary Review'', August 1996.
It has been suggested that Kérékou's move to Marxism-Leninism was motivated mainly by pragmatic considerations, and that Kérékou himself was not actually a leftist radical; the new ideology offered a means of legitimization, a way of distinguishing the new regime from those that had preceded it, and was based on broader unifying principles than the politics of ethnicity. Kérékou's regime initially included officers from both the north and south of the country, but as the years passed the northerners (like Kérékou himself) became clearly dominant, undermining the idea that the regime was not based in ethnicity. By officially adopting Marxism-Leninism, Kérékou may also have wanted to win the support of the country's leftists.
Kérékou's regime was rigid and vigorous in pursuing its newly adopted ideological goals from the mid-1970s to the late 1970s. In 1974, under the influence of young revolutionaries - the "Ligueurs" - the government embarked on a socialist program: nationalization of strategic sectors of the economy, reform of the education system, establishment of agricultural cooperatives and new local government structures, and a campaign to eradicate "feudal
Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a wa ...
forces" including tribalism
Tribalism is the state of being organized by, or advocating for, tribes or tribal lifestyles. Human evolution has primarily occurred in small hunter-gatherer groups, as opposed to in larger and more recently settled agricultural societies or civ ...
. Beginning in the late 1970s, the regime jettisoned much of its radicalism and settled onto a more moderately socialist course as Kérékou consolidated his personal control.Its relations with France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
and other African governments in the region deteriorated because of the Marxism claimed by the Beninese regime and the support offered to the Polisario Front
The Polisario Front, Frente Polisario, Frelisario or simply Polisario, from the Spanish abbreviation of (Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro), (in ar, rtl=yes, الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير الس ...
for the liberation of Western Sahara. The French government of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
Valéry René Marie Georges Giscard d'Estaing (, , ; 2 February 19262 December 2020), also known as Giscard or VGE, was a French politician who served as President of France from 1974 to 1981.
After serving as Minister of Finance under prime ...
feared the spread of Marxism in West Africa and decided to react. He was joined by Félix Houphouet-Boigny (Ivory Coast
Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital is Yamoussoukro, in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre is ...
), Gnassingbé Eyadéma
Gnassingbé Eyadéma (; born Étienne Gnassingbé, 26 December 1935 – 5 February 2005) was the president of Togo from 1967 until his death in 2005, after which he was immediately succeeded by his son, Faure Gnassingbé.
Eyadéma participated i ...
(Togo
Togo (), officially the Togolese Republic (french: République togolaise), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its c ...
), Joseph-Désiré Mobutu
Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (; born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu; 14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997) was a Congolese politician and military officer who was the List of heads of state of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, presiden ...
(Zaire
Zaire (, ), officially the Republic of Zaire (french: République du Zaïre, link=no, ), was a Congolese state from 1971 to 1997 in Central Africa that was previously and is now again known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Zaire was, ...
) and Hassan II Hassan, Hasan, Hassane, Haasana, Hassaan, Asan, Hassun, Hasun, Hassen, Hasson or Hasani may refer to:
People
*Hassan (given name), Arabic given name and a list of people with that given name
*Hassan (surname), Arabic, Jewish, Irish, and Scottis ...
(Morocco
Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...
), who, in addition to the diplomatic isolation and attempts to destabilize Benin economically, decided to organize an attempted coup d'état. This was the operation shrimp, entrusted to the French mercenary Bob Denard
Robert Denard (born Gilbert Bourgeaud; 7 April 1929 – 13 October 2007) was a French soldier of fortune and mercenary. He served as the Military Leader of The Comoros twice with him first serving from 13 May 1978 to 15 December 1989 and again ...
, on January 17, 1977, but it failed completely.
It was hoped that the nationalizations of the 1970s would help develop the economy, but it remained in a very poor condition. Kérékou began reversing course in the early 1980s, closing down numerous state-run companies and attempting to attract foreign investment. He also accepted an IMF structural readjustment programme in 1989, agreeing to austerity measures that severely cut state expenditure. The economic situation continued to worsen during the 1980s, provoking widespread unrest in 1989. A student strike began in January of that year; subsequently strikes among various elements of society increased in frequency and the nature of their demands grew broader: whereas initially they had focused on economic issues such as salary arrears, this progressed to include demands for political reform.
Transition to democracy
In the period of reforms towards multiparty democracy in Africa at the beginning of the 1990s, Benin moved onto this path early, with Kérékou being forced to make concessions to popular discontent. Benin's early and relatively smooth transition may be attributed to the particularly dismal economic situation in the country, which seemed to preclude any alternative. In the midst of increasing unrest, Kérékou was re-elected as president by the National Assembly in August 1989, but in December 1989 Marxism-Leninism was dropped as the state ideology, and a national conference was held in February 1990. The conference turned out to be hostile to Kérékou and declared its own sovereignty; despite the objections of some of his officers to this turn of events, Kérékou did not act against the conference, although he labelled the conference's declaration of sovereignty a "civilian coup". During the transition that followed, Kérékou remained president but lost most of his power.
During the 1990 National Conference, which was nationally televised, Kérékou spoke to the Archbishop of Cotonou, Isidore de Souza Isidore de Souza (4 April 1934 – 13 March 1999) was a Beninese priest who was Archbishop of Cotonou from 1990 to 1999.
He was born into the aristocratic De Souza family of Ouidah on 4 April 1934. He was the uncle of Chantal Yayi, who serve ...
, confessing guilt and begging forgiveness for the flaws of his regime. An observer described it as a "remarkable piece of political theater", full of cultural symbolism and significance; in effect, Kérékou was seeking forgiveness from his people. Such a gesture, so unusual for the African leaders of the time, could have fatally weakened Kérékou's political standing, but he performed the gesture in such a way that, far from ending his political career, it instead served to symbolically redeem him and facilitate his political rehabilitation, while also "securing him immunity from prosecution". Kérékou shrewdly utilized the timing and setting: "Culturally as well as theologically it was impossible to refuse forgiveness on these terms."[
]World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...
economist Nicéphore Soglo
Nicéphore Dieudonné Soglo (born November 29, 1934) is a Beninese politician who was Prime Minister of Benin from 1990 to 1991 and President from 1991 to 1996. He was Mayor of Cotonou from 2003 to 2015. Soglo was married to Rosine Vieyra Soglo, ...
, chosen as prime minister by the conference, took office in March, and a new constitution was approved in a December 1990 referendum. Multi-party elections were held in March 1991, which Kérékou lost, obtaining only about 32% of the vote in the second round against Prime Minister Soglo;[Elections in Benin](_blank)
African Elections Database. while he won very large vote percentages in the north, in the rest of the country he found little support. Kérékou was thus the first mainland African president to lose power through a popular election. He apologized for "deplorable and regrettable incidents" that occurred during his rule.[
After losing the election in March 1991, Kérékou left the political scene and "withdrew to total silence", another move that was interpreted as penitential.][
]
1996 presidential election
Kérékou reclaimed the presidency in the March 1996 election. Soglo's economic reforms and his alleged dictatorial tendencies had caused his popularity to suffer. Although Kérékou received fewer votes than Soglo in the first round, he then defeated Soglo in the second round, taking 52.5% of the vote. Kérékou was backed in the second round by third place candidate Adrien Houngbédji
Adrien Houngbédji (born 5 March 1942) is a Beninese politician and the leader of the Democratic Renewal Party (''Parti du renouveau démocratique'', PRD), one of Benin's main political parties. He was President of the National Assembly of Benin ...
and fourth place candidate Bruno Amoussou
Bruno Ange-Marie Amoussou (born 2 July 1939) is a Beninese politician who was President of the National Assembly of Benin from 1995 to 1999https://assemblee-nationale.bj/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Histoire-et-patrimoine.pdf and Minister of Stat ...
;[ as in 1991, Kérékou received very strong support from northern voters, but he also improved his performance in the south.][ Soglo alleged fraud, but this was rejected by the Constitutional Court, which confirmed Kérékou's victory. When taking the oath of office, Kérékou left out a portion that referred to the "spirits of the ancestors" because he had become a born-again Christian after his defeat by Soglo. He was subsequently forced to retake the oath including the reference to spirits.
]
Disputed re-election, 2001
Kérékou was re-elected for a second five-year term in the March 2001 presidential election under controversial circumstances. In the first round he took 45.4% of the vote; Soglo, who took second place, and parliament speaker Houngbédji, who took third, both refused to participate in the second round, alleging fraud and saying that they did not want to legitimize the vote by participating in it. This left the fourth-place finisher, Amoussou, to face Kérékou in the run-off, and Kérékou easily won with 83.6% of the vote. It was subsequently discovered that the American corporation Titan gave more than two million dollars to Kérékou's re-election campaign as a bribe.
During Kérékou's second period in office his government followed a liberal economic path. The period also saw Benin take part in international peacekeeping missions in other African states.
Kérékou was barred from running again in 2006 on two counts. The constitution not only stipulated an absolute two-term limit, but also required that presidential candidates be younger than 70; he turned 70 in 2003, during his second term. Kérékou said in July 2005 that he would not attempt to amend the constitution to allow him to run for a third term. "If you don't leave power," he said, "power will leave you." There was, however, speculation that he had wanted it to be changed, but faced too much opposition.
On 5 March 2006, voters went to the polls to decide who would succeed Kérékou as President of Benin. Yayi Boni Yayi may refer to
* China-Taiwan Yayi Cup, a Go competition
*Thomas Boni Yayi
Thomas Boni Yayi (born 1 July 1951) is a Beninese banker and politician who was President of Benin from 2006 to 2016. He took office after winning the March 2006 presi ...
defeated Adrien Houngbédji in a run-off vote on 19 March, and Kérékou left office at the end of his term, at midnight on 6 April 2006.
Religion and symbolism
Born and baptized in the Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
faith, although he was a lapsed adherent, Kérékou allegedly converted to Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
in 1980 while on a visit to Libya, and changed his first name to Ahmed, but he later returned to the use of the name Mathieu. This alleged conversion may have been designed to please the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, . Due to the lack of standardization of transcribing written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been romanized in various ways. A 1986 column by ''The Straight Dope'' lists 32 spellin ...
and obtain financial and military support. Alternatively, the conversion story may have been a rumor planted by some of his opponents in order to destabilize his regime. He subsequently became a born-again Christian
Born again, or to experience the new birth, is a phrase, particularly in evangelicalism, that refers to a "spiritual rebirth", or a regeneration of the human spirit. In contrast to one's physical birth, being "born again" is distinctly and sepa ...
. Some Vodun
Vodun (meaning ''spirit'' in the Fon, Gun and Ewe languages, with a nasal high-tone ''u''; also spelled Vodon, Vodoun, Vodou, Vudu, Voudou, Voodoo, etc.) is a religion practiced by the Aja, Ewe, and Fon peoples of Benin, Togo, Ghana, and ...
believers in Benin regarded him as having magical powers, explaining his ability to survive repeated coup attempts during his military rule.
Nicknamed "the chameleon" from an early point in his career, Kérékou's motto was "the branch will not break in the arms of the chameleon".[ The nickname and motto he adopted were full of cultural symbolism, articulating and projecting his power and ability. Unlike some past rulers who had adopted animal symbolism intending to project a violent, warlike sense of power, Kérékou's symbolic animal suggested skill and cleverness; his motto suggested that he would keep the branch from breaking, but implicitly warned of what could happen to "the branch" if it was not "in the arms of the chameleon"—political chaos.][ To some, his nickname seemed particularly apt as he successfully adapted himself to a new political climate and neoliberal economic policies in the 1990s.][
He used the campaign slogan, "Experience in the service of youth."
]
Retirement and death
After leaving office in 2006, Kérékou stayed out of politics and spent time at his homes in Cotonou and Natitingou
Natitingou, informally referred to as Nati, is a city and commune in north western Benin and the capital of Atakora Department. The commune covers an area of 3045 square kilometres and as of 2013 had a population of 104,010 people.
History
The to ...
in northwestern Benin, his native region. He suffered a health crisis in 2014 and was taken to Paris for treatment. Although he recovered, he continued to suffer health problems, and he died in Benin on 14 October 2015 at the age of 82.[Tirthankar Chanda]
"Les «Caméléons» meurent aussi: Mathieu Kérékou s’en est allé"
Radio France Internationale, 14 October 2015 . His death was announced in a statement by President Thomas Boni Yayi
Thomas Boni Yayi (born 1 July 1951) is a Beninese banker and politician who was President of Benin from 2006 to 2016. He took office after winning the March 2006 presidential election and was re-elected to a second term in March 2011. He also s ...
. No cause of death was stated."Benin's former president Mathieu Kerekou dies at 82"
Agence France-Presse, 14 October 2015. A week of national mourning was declared.[
]
References
Further reading
* Allen, D., Allen, C., Radu, M., Somerville, K., Allan, G., & Baxter, J. ''Benin'' (Burns & Oates, 1989).
* Fredriksen, John C. ed. ''Biographical Dictionary of Modern World Leaders'' (2003) pp 252–253.
* Strandsbjerg, Camilla. "Continuity and Rupture in Conceptions of Political Power in Benin, 1972-2001." ''Cahiers detudes africaines'' 1 (2005): 71-94.
* Strandsbjerg, Camilla. "Kerekou, God and the ancestors: religion and the conception of political power in Benin." ''African Affairs'' 99.396 (2000): 395-414.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kerekou, Mathieu
1933 births
Presidents of Benin
2015 deaths
People of French West Africa
Leaders who took power by coup
Communist rulers
Beninese evangelicals
Beninese military personnel
People's Revolutionary Party of Benin politicians
Converts to Protestantism from Islam
Beninese former Muslims
Converts to Protestantism from atheism or agnosticism
Beninese communists
Communism in Benin
Library of Congress Africa Collection related
Converts to Islam from Roman Catholicism
People from Atakora Department
21st-century Beninese politicians
20th-century Beninese politicians
Former Marxists