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Topic Discussion I
Politics of Hard Choices
Political Transition and Economic Restructuring
Room 1
(10 of 20 pages)
Margaret de Boer: --- your country, but when you have 150 parties in a
country which consists of six-million people and you have 15 parties in your parliament, the question of Mr. Naciri
was is it time to slow down the growth of political parties? And that's the part of his question where I said well,
perhaps some people also might raise their eyebrows over that question, but I think nevertheless it's a good question
and what I hear from you is that you say, no, it is essential for us to have those parties, is that right?
Adrien Houngbedji: I said it was essential to have many political parties, but it is not inevitable actually
to have as many. A law has been promulgated in order to slow down the establishment of political parties. It consists
in subsidizing the political groupings that obtained a given percentage of votes during the elections and thus,
also to participate somehow to their financing. We think that through this way we could already reduce the number
of political parties, however the way chosen by Benin is the freedom chosen, we don't want to resort to coersion
in order to have less political parties. If we have 15 political parties represented in the national assembly,
I think that in the coming elections there will be a change. We need actually a law that stipulates that any party
that is not presented in elections should be canceled. I think that these are reforms that will come up slowly.
Margaret de Boer: --- Sharma because of the -- yes, I know, but because I want to go a bit more in detail
into this matter because when we talk about emerging democracies then of course this is a very essential aspect
and I think we are at the brink of breaking democracy when we have too many political parties, that is something
very, very -- I wouldn't say dangerous, but it is tricky at least. Now, we have friends from Mongolia, they also
are in a new situation and I know they have to leave this room at 5:30, isn't it so? Yes? So do you want to react
to this question before you leave or is it not essential for you?
Speaker: Thank you, Ms. Chair. We just had a question for the representative from Benin, if possible, can
we ask?
Margaret de Boer: Our friend from Benin is very popular. A question from Mongolia for Benin.
Mongolian Speaker: Thank you. We have three questions for the representative of Benin. The first one is
-- all three questions are about privatization. The first one is what are the types of privatization, in what way
do you conduct privatization, is it in the way of tender bids or contracting agreements? The second question is
can a foreign company or individual participate in the privatization process in Benin? If so, will it be considered
as a foreign investment? The third question is are there any other factories or any objects that are not subject
to privatization in Benin? Thank you.
Margaret de Boer: I'm again interfering, but before Mr. Houngbedji gets the floor, can you tell me what
is the situation in your country, what are you doing with privatization, what are you doing in this field?
Mongolian Speaker: New parliamentary elections have been held. So it was the first election when a democratic
coalition won the majority of the seats in the parliament. So new political power has started conducting the privatization
process in our country. According to the new law in privatization, 60 percent of state-owned enterprises must be
privatized between 1996 and 2000. So by now, most of the service enterprises have been privatized, but major economic
entities that influence the economy of Mongolia have not been privatized as of yet, for example, railroads, power
stations, airlines, and also the major copper mining enterprise, fuel stations. So far these enterprises have not
been privatized yet, so the political parties in the parliament should reach a consensus on how to privatize these
enterprises.
Margaret de Boer: All right, thank you very much. I give the floor to Mr. Houngbedji and I ask him to be
very brief in your reaction and then I'll ask Mr. Sharma to go into the questions which are still laying here,
and then I'll go to our Iranian friend. First, Mr. Houngbedji. If possible, brief, please.
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