Nicéphore Soglo

Soglo served as transitional prime minister after Benin's 1990 national conference and defeated Mathieu Kérékou in the 1991 presidential election. The conference, new constitution and organised civic pressure created the institutional route that his victory completed. His later defeat by Kérékou in 1996 also mattered: the replacement of one elected government by another tested whether political competition would survive the initial transition. Credit belongs to the conference participants and voters as well as to the new president.