Benin 1990
Benin led a wave of political liberalization in Africa. It drafted a new constitution in response to an institutional crisis. An initial roundtable meeting developed the format the constitution making process followed and established some initial principles the final draft would reflect. A national conference was empowered to reflect upon 7 volumes of citizen input, deliberate about main items for inclusion in a draft, promulgation of a transitional constitution, and selection of a transitional legislature. Responsibility for preparing and debating the actual text lay with the indirectly chosen transitional legislature.
The conference convened 495 delegates for a period of ten days. The delegates included representatives of newly formed political parties, farmers, unions, the branches of government, the central and regional administration, the army, religious groups, and NGOs. The incumbent regime reserved 10% of the positions for its supporters and “invited personalities.” The organizers also invited observers from the press, international organizations, and diplomatic missions. The conference was televised and broadcast on the radio.
The conference formed sub-committees, of which the Commission of Constitutional Affairs was the most notable. This commission translated the deputies’ ideas into text. It referred this text to the transitional legislature and to the legislature’s own constitution drafting committee. By pre-arrangement, this committee included 5 members of the conference’s constitutional commission as well as 10 others chosen by the legislature for their representativeness or their legal knowledge.
Note: The communist parties boycotted the conference. The incumbent quickly moved from a position of possible opposition to the conference to a position of acceptance. The conference’s comparative success is partly due to the forward-looking stance encouraged by its leaders.