BENIN: PRESIDENT YAYI APPOINTS NEW MINISTER OF JUSTICE

UNCLAS COTONOU 000025 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR AF/W (DBANKS) PARIS FOR D'ELIA E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR KMCA BN SUBJECT: BENIN: PRESIDENT YAYI APPOINTS NEW MINISTER OF JUSTICE REF: (A) 06 COTONOU 1176; (B) 06 COTONOU 1153; (C) 06 COTONOU 782 ¶1. On January 9, 2007, President Boni Yayi announced that his chief of staff, Nestor Dako, was being named as Minister of Justice and Spokesman of the Government. Mr. Dako replaces Mr. Abraham Zinzindohou who has been appointed as Benin's member of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) Court of Justice. ¶2. Mr. Dako served as Yayi's chief of staff for the past nine months, a position in which he also served as chair of the Board of Director's for Benin's Millennium Challenge Account Compact. No announcement has been made about who will replace Mr. Dako as chief of staff. ¶3. Prior to becoming Presidential chief of staff, Dako was a senior magistrate who held a series of prosecutorial positions in Benin's judicial system. Among his most prominent cases was his prosecution in December 2002 of several judges and ministry of Finance employees involved in the embezzlement of state funds. He has no declared political affiliation, but belongs to the same religious group - Assembly of God - as the president. He is married and has nine children. ¶4. Departing minister Zinzindohou, a lawyer and former president of the Supreme Court and former National Assembly deputy, is an influential member of the Renaissance du Benin (RB) party, one of Benin's few effective political parties. He served as the campaign director for RB presidential candidate Lehadi Soglo in the first round of elections, and then, like the rest of the RB, supported Yayi in the run-off. Zinzindohou was notable as perhaps the most political of all of Yayi's initial ministerial appointments, and his move to the UEMOA Court of Justice leaves the RB without any formally affiliated members of Yayi's government. ¶5. COMMENT: Both Dako's and Zinzindohou's appointments are being described as promotions, and both men are reported to be pleased with their new assignments. As the fourth change of ministers in just nine months in office (REFS A-C),the move shows once again that Yayi is not at all shy about changing personnel. The question is whether the changes will make his government more effective. Zinzindohou had been among the most productive of Yayi's ministers, leading the effort to stare down his former parliamentary colleagues when they proposed amending the Constitution to extend their own term, and pushing through an ambitious effort to issue ID documents to all unregistered Beninese over the age of 15. Dako, who has performed reasonably well as chief of staff and as MCA Board Chair, hopefully will now maintain the progress. END COMMENT BROWN