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Timeline
December 1990 – After decades of military rule, voters approve a new democratic constitution establishing a multi-party system with an executive presidency, a court system and a legislative National Assembly.
March 1991 – In the first multi-candidate presidential elections, former World Bank official Nicephore Soglo defeats President Mathieu Kerekou, in power since 1972.
June 1993 – The Constitutional Court, charged with determining the constitutionality of laws and resolving disputes between the executive and legislative branches, officially convenes.
March 1996 – Mathieu Kerekou defeats Nicephore Soglo in national elections and reclaims the presidency.
December 1996 – President Kerekou creates the anti-corruption office La Cellule de Moralisation de la Vie Publique (CMVP).
December 1997 – The government opens the airwaves to privately owned radio and television stations.
November 1997 – With the help of former World Bank chief Robert McNamara, Benin and five other African countries agree to crack down on corruption associated with the process of awarding contracts to foreign companies.
March 1998 – President Kerekou holds a three-day national forum on corruption, attended by top government and political figures as well as members of international and religious organizations.
July 1999 – State-owned oil giant SONACOP is privatized and sold to a company headed by Sefou Fagbohoun, a business tycoon believed to have close ties to President Kerekou. The deal immediately raises suspicions of cronyism and corruption.
July 1999 – The government introduces a code of ethics for awarding government contracts.
May 2000 – Former armed forces chief of staff Colonel Gandonou Kodja is accused of misappropriating funds intended for Beninese soldiers who served with a peacekeeping force in Liberia in 1997. Kodja flees the country and is arrested in May 2004 when he returns to Benin to attend his mother's funeral.
December 2000 – The government issues a five-volume guide designed to enhance transparency and efficiency in public affairs management.
February 2001 – The first members of the High Court of Justice, created by the 1990 constitution to try crimes against the state committed by the president or government ministers, are sworn in and begin serving their terms.
March 2001 – Kerekou is re-elected. International observers declare the elections free, though not entirely fair.
December 2001 – Three national journalist associations jointly condemn the government's move to rescind the press credentials of Patrick Adjamonsi, editorial director of the newspaper L'Aurore, for publishing what the government claimed were falsehoods about links between Benin and the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Adjamonsi was briefly detained and questioned by the police when the article-which the newspaper later retracted-appeared in September.
January 2002 – In his state of the union address, President Kerekou reaffirms his commitment to stamping out public-sector corruption.
December 2002 – The country holds its first local elections since the end of the one-party regime in 1990.
April 2003 – Benin's private press associations observe a "no press day" to denounce the Cotonou police's detention and beating of four journalists from the daily Le Telegramme, which published a letter criticizing the national chief of police.
June 2004 – The court reaches a decision on 87 court and finance ministry officials charged in 2001 with accepting bribes and embezzling state funds between 1996 and 2000. Sixty-two are convicted and receive prison sentences ranging from 6 months to 5 years.
March 2005 – Titan Corp., an American defense contractor providing telecommunication services to Benin, pleads guilty to overseas bribery and is fined US$28.5 million by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company allegedly contributed one billion francs (US$2 million) to President Kerekou's 2001 re-election campaign, funneled into Kerekou's campaign coffers through his business advisor, who was working as Titan's agent in Benin.
July 2005 – President Kerekou, constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, announces he will step down at the end of his term the following year and not push to change the constitution to stay in power.
March 2006 – Former development banker Yayi Boni defeats former parliamentary speaker Adrien Houngbedji in the presidential election.
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