The National Assembly of Benin has passed sweeping constitutional reforms extending the presidential mandate from five to seven years and introducing a bicameral legislature for the first time in the country’s history.
The approval was announced in a Facebook post on Saturday by the Assemblée Nationale du Bénin, confirming that lawmakers adopted the revised Constitution during a plenary session on Friday at the Palace of the Governors in Porto-Novo.
According to the Assembly, 90 deputies voted in favour and 19 against the amendment to the Constitution of December 11, 1990, which was last revised in 2019.
“The Deputies of the 9th Legislature… adopted by 90 votes for and 19 against, the law modifying the Constitution of the Republic of Bénin,”
the Assembly stated.
In line with Article 154, the reform first required a three-quarters majority before proceeding to a final secret ballot. Lawmakers crossed this threshold with 87 votes for and 22 against, clearing the way for Friday’s decisive vote.
The Facebook announcement—originally in French and translated by PUNCH Online using Google Translate—details that 15 new articles were added and 18 others amended.
One of the most consequential revisions appears in the updated Article 42, which now reads:
“The President of the Republic is elected by direct universal suffrage for a term of seven years, renewable only once. No one may, in his or her lifetime, serve more than two terms as President of the Republic.”
The amendment maintains the two-term limit but lengthens each mandate by two years.
A major structural reform is the introduction of a two-chamber parliament. The revised Article 79 now assigns legislative and oversight powers to both the National Assembly and a newly created Senate.
“Parliament… exercises legislative power and oversees government action. It is now composed of two chambers: the National Assembly and the Senate,”
the statement explained.
Under Article 113.1, the Senate is defined as the institution responsible for regulating political life and upholding “national unity, development, territorial defence, public security, democracy, and peace.”
The reforms also standardise political tenures across multiple levels of government. Under Article 80, deputies will now serve seven-year renewable terms. The article also introduces a strict party loyalty clause:
“Any deputy who resigns and thereby ceases to be a member of the party that sponsored them for the legislative election loses their mandate.”
Similarly, the amended law extends the tenure of mayors and municipal councillors to seven years, renewable.
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