{"id":31597,"date":"2026-04-12T13:24:39","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T11:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=31597"},"modified":"2026-04-12T13:24:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T11:24:39","slug":"benin-heads-to-the-polls-in-tightly-contested-presidential-vote","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/benin-heads-to-the-polls-in-tightly-contested-presidential-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Benin heads to the polls in tightly contested presidential vote"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Voters in Benin went to the polls this Sunday to elect a new President in a race limited to just two candidates.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Finance Minister Romuald Wadagni, representing the ruling coalition, is facing off against former Culture Minister Paul Hounkp\u00e8.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The election is being closely watched after the country\u2019s main opposition party was disqualified for failing to meet endorsement requirements, raising concerns about the competitiveness of the vote.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Around eight million registered voters were expected to take part in the election, which comes at a critical time for the country\u2019s political and democratic trajectory.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":30051,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-31597","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Voters in Benin went to the polls this Sunday","published_date":"2026-04-12 13:10:07","news_description":"Voters in Benin went to the polls this Sunday","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31598,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31597\/revisions\/31598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=31597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}