Benin senate holds its first official plenary session in Cotonou under Patrice Talon
Benin’s upper house of parliament sat for its very first official plenary meeting on Tuesday 15 September 2026, gathering at the provisional headquarters of the institution in Cotonou.
Senators were chaired through the sitting by Patrice Talon, the president of the senate, who steered the chamber through the organisational groundwork required to let this new republican institution function on a regular footing.
A rulebook to anchor the chamber’s work
The heart of the inaugural agenda consisted of reviewing and adopting the senate’s administrative and financial regulation.
That founding text is meant to set out the internal governance rules of the chamber, spell out how its resources are to be managed, and open the way for the formal installation of the general secretariat.
Its adoption draws to a close the transitional phase handed on 8 September to administrator Édouard Ouin-Ouro, who had been handling the institution’s first operational steps.
Two former heads of state sit out the session
The opening parliamentary meeting will nevertheless be noted for the striking absence of two heavyweights of national political life, both former presidents of the republic who hold seats in the upper assembly as members by right.
Nicéphore Soglo and Thomas Boni Yayi did not join Tuesday’s deliberations.
Health grounds behind the two absences
Health reasons kept the two former leaders away from the Cotonou gathering, leaving the chamber to proceed without them on the day it launched its institutional life.
