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Topic Discussion I
Politics of Hard Choices
Political Transition and Economic Restructuring
Room 1
(9 of 20 pages)
Margaret de Boer: You know it's a very interesting intervention you gave
just now and I think that our friends, Benin, are quite eager to respond to that, but first before I give you the
floor, I want to give the floor to a colleague of Mr. Naciri, Mrs. Haout, also from Morocco. Do you want to give
your intervention now or do you want to hear the reaction of Benin first? It is up to you, you can choose. Okay,
you'll give your intervention now, all right, I give you the floor.
Mrs. Haout: The results of the structured reform has created a problem for all countries which adopted this
program, especially on the social and economic levels. Apart from the political regime or anything else because
the social disasters are very grave, that impedes any democratic advancement and the question now, how can such
countries rebuild their systems and regimes and how to tackle the problems of structural reforms and also economic
development programs which are quite related to social development and changing the society in its entirety?
I do agree with the intervention that we have to overcome all such problems and we have to create a balance, to
strike a balance between the economic, social, legal and political aspects because there was some resistance to
change in our society when we tried to downsize the staff or to reduce production or something like that. Such
problems are very normal and extraordinary because we don't have such foresight, we should be more foresighted,
and we should take into account that some people would be made redundant in some governmental bodies on all levels,
education, health. In the private sector when they are made redundant -- in the public sector, sorry. The private
sector have to absorb them, so any policy which fails to absorb this would fail. In the short term, in the medium
term, in the long term, we should take into account all the points. Those with a vision can support the reform
system. The same problems of Benin are already existing in Morocco. We have the unemployment of graduates, those
with degrees are unemployed and now we are also speaking of micro-credits and some programs that can alleviate
the problem for unemployment problem. The problem is that where is the problematic? The young people have never
been trained in such a way as to have free will, they do not have the free will, how can they run business without
being educated? On the other hand, in the absence of legislations that encourage investments in order to attract
investors in Africa, we can do nothing. There is no support from the legislations and this sub-contractor who are
working in very difficult conditions. We try to solve such problems under a holistic political approach, including
legal reform, legislative reform, and other phased programs that may yield and reap the fruits in the long term
only. That's it.
Margaret de Boer: Mrs. Haout raised the essential question how to implement the economic improvement or
change in a society where you don't have yet the social system to compete with all those problems. Now, I would
suggest that because our friends from Benin were addressed and I think it is not really a Benin problem then we
wouldn't have this discussion because when we would have to deal only with Benin, but I think it is a problem of
the whole developing world, but as you were addressed at first, I would ask you to take the floor in order to go
into especially the political questions that were raised and then later on, I would ask Mr. Sharma to go into the
questions of Mrs. Haout about how to conquer the social problems in changing your economic system, and I think
no one has at this moment, let's say the stone of wisdom, but we are all trying to find it also at this table.
Well, who can I give the floor to for the questions of Mr. Naciri? Mr. Houngbedji?
Adrien Houngbedji: Thank you. As a matter of fact, I would like to answer Mr. Naciri, who spoke about a
multi-party system in the context of Benin. As I have just said it, if only 15 parties are represented in the national
assembly, we have a total of 120 parties which exert their activities, they undertake all their activities and
they try to access parliament. It is true that most of them don't go to elections, however we still have 120 parties
in such a context, which concerns us as well because for six-million population having so many political parties,
this creates a problem. We think that more and more a multi-party systems starts serving as queen facing regionalism,
tribalism, as well as -- I mean, we have every region, every ethnic group, every clan, and each one has a tendency
to create a political party considering that it is for the good of the political party to have a share of responsibility
in the management of the country. The electoral law that we have promulgated in Benin that installs the integral
multi-party system is understood in the framework where of our situation after democratization when the door was
open to freedom, we had a terrible dragging of our compatriots. They thought that the best way of expressing their
freedoms and their political rights consisted in creating political groups. We have also another phenomenon that
increased the problem, it is the electoral law that we promulgated on the level of the legislative elections. We
have the institute also and we have also the proportional listers ballot system. In this ballot system it is not
easy to have a majority of ideas that is within the assembly and also the political class. This is also a system
that favors the minority and thus, the Benin people understood very quickly the advantage that they could draw
from this system, it is the advantage of creating many political parties and as I said here today, in the national
assembly we have now around 15 parties which are represented, which is already too much.
And then you asked me if there was a new political class.
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