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