His courting of politicians such as Côte d'Ivoire's Kablan Duncan and Benin's Nicéphore Soglo (once a World Bank official in Washington) also went down badly on the Quai d'Orsay...
(Mahamane's Beninese friend Nicéphore Soglo refused to talk to the junta but he has since been replaced though more democratically by Mathieu Kérékou)...
In the first round of the presidential poll on 3 March Kérékou (772 308 votes) was neck and neck with President Nicéphore Soglo (793 904); virtually the same results as those in the first free election in 1991 when Soglo ended Kérékou's 19-year reign in the second round...
President Nicéphore Soglo who won the 1991 presidential election with 67...
Benin and Zambia have followed the same strategy of simultaneous economic and political liberalisation: President Nicéphore Soglo appears to have had more success than President Frederick Chiluba but both of them face the voters' verdict this year...