Issifou Abou Moumouni holds a PhD in social anthropology. He is currently a lecturer at the University of Parakou (Benin) and post-doctoral fellow within the Cluster Africa Multiple at the University of Bayreuth (Germany). He is also Researcher at the Laboratoire d’Etudes et de Recherches sur les Dynamiques sociales et le Développement Local (LASDEL).
MIASA Project: Elections in the context of digitalization in Benin: Issues and challenges for people in illiteracy
At the end of the 2010s, Benin embarked on digitalizing the public services, which began with the instalment of the permanent computerized electoral register. This initiative has gained momentum in recent years, with the creation, from 2020 onwards, of numerous platforms to offer almost all public services. Since then, digitalization seems to be affecting almost every sector of activity and citizens’ daily lives. It is the framework of widespread digitalization that the last four major elections (communal and municipal legislative and presidential elections in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2023) have been organized. But despite the political will to ensure citizens’ effective participation of citizens in the exercise of their civic rights, experimentation with digitalization has given rise to the emergence of forms of fractures in participation. What can we make of this experiment in the early stages of digitalization of the electoral process? How can citizens – particularly those who have difficulty with the written word – experience that process? This paper presents an analysis of the electoral process, highlighting not only the stakes and challenges but also the paradoxes engendered by the digitalization of citizen participation in public life in Benin.
