Heavy silence from Boni Yayi on the eve of the 2026 presidential election: the twilight of a political sphinx?
Once upon a time, every public appearance of Boni Yayi and the throngs of people it drew, caused a stir in the Beninese political realm. His media remarks acted like seismic shocks in the power structure.
SUMMARY
As a President with prolific eloquence, a crowd pleaser and a behind-the-scenes leader after leaving the Marina Palace, he seemed to embody a certain idea of change – often chaotic, frequently divisive, but always clamorous.
But now, a silence sets in – heavy, unsettling, almost suspicious. With a major election approaching, the once-great orchestrator of the national political scene is quiet. And this absence is striking. Because it is not just a simple withdrawal from the media. It’s a symbolic disappearance.
A chosen silence or a forced isolation?
Some suggest a “strategy of retreat”. Others, more clear-eyed, speak of disenchantment, even a progressive disconnection from the new realities of Benin’s political game. Silence, in the tradition of the wise, can be full of meaning. But in the democratic tumult of a country in the making, it can also signify a loss of control.
The Democratic party, long perceived as his political arm, seems to be operating in disarray, without a clear direction or uncontested figurehead.
The young opposition wolves, more digital than tribune, struggle to invoke his legacy as an essential reference. And in political circles, the name Yayi is no longer a trump card, but a wild card one hesitates to play.
An era gone by?
The real tragedy, perhaps, is not his silence. But that no one seems to fervently demand it anymore. What Yayi represented before the 2019 legislative elections no longer speaks to today’s voters. Politics has changed its skin. The relationship with power, too. And the “Talon system”, with all its paradoxes, has redefined the battleground.
Has Yayi given up? Is he holding back for a final maneuver? Or is he helplessly watching the burial of his political capital? The most cynical will say that he was consumed, then discarded by a constantly messiah-seeking opposition. The more realistic will see the inevitable wear and tear of time. The most severe will fault a failure to reinvent oneself.
2026: without him or against him?
What is certain is that the 2026 milestone is approaching without him at center stage. Alliances are being forged, strategies honed, ambitions sharpened, and the sphinx remains silent. Neither a prophet, nor a kingmaker, perhaps just a spectator.
But in politics, a void doesn’t stay empty for long. If Boni Yayi no longer occupies the debate space, others will. And with them, a new generation that owes nothing to the old regime, nor its past glories.
Comments