A fact from Presidential Council (Benin) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 26 December 2012 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that Benin adopted a Presidential Council system with three political rivals serving as president together to prevent civil war following the 1970 elections?
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I'll be doing a more complete copy edit and review shortly. Comments will be added below:
"dividing the country between the north, the Abomey area, and Porto-Novo." - It's unclear whether these are three areas, or whether the Abomey area is in the north.
"Maga became the first president of Dahomey" - what did Apithy become, vice president? prime minister? something else? In other words, what was this alliance exactly? Did he simply express his support for Maga, or make a formal alliance as a running mate?
"Maga actively promoted people from his base of power" - what is meant here? Did Maga back the political campaigns of candidates from his region, or hire people into the civil service or...?
"When Ahomadégbé released Maga from prison, he seized..." - who seized?
"allying with his second in command" - who is the second in command? Did this alliance actually happen, or was it only suspected/imagined?
"a number of military leaders did not like his independent actions" - What is meant here - the military disliked his lack of regard for their authority?
"The country was considered to be close to civil war." - who considered it?
"Politics remained quite precarious between the three of the Presidential Council, the military, and unions/students." - This is unclear - could you please rephrase this or expand on it?
"reduce union activity" - in what sense?
"main armor unit" - what is this?
"he declared the end of the Presidential Council" - more detail here would be helpful. What happened to the members of government? How did he make his declaration known - how was the transfer of power to himself made official?
Kerekou is not well introduced or explained. Who is he and how does he fit into the run-up to the coup?
This article is rich in details on the background and run-up to the formation of the Presidential Council, but it's lacking in information about how it operated in the period when it was active. How was its function formalized - what laws or documents were written to detail how it worked? How long was it meant to continue operating? Was there any "higher authority"? What about the rest of government - did it remain unchanged? Were policies still implemented using the same system, or did anything change?
What kind of policies were adopted during the years when the Presidential Council operated? What was the public reaction to this body - was it viewed as legitimate, or was it rejected? Was the threat of secession quelled effectively or did it return, either during the Presidential Council period or after the coup?
Half addressed: All rephrased up until "he declared the end of the Presidential Council comment". Those remaining areas are still under construction. Sorry about the one big edit--but there was really no other way to start getting involved. More edits will be coming soon to address remaining issues, but if new issues arose in the rewrite, please let me know. AbstractIllusions (talk) 14:25, 20 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed? Comments: 1. All wording problems changed and rewritten (along with a more general rewrite), 2. Added details about Kerekou ending the Presidential council. 3. Introduction of Kerekou--he really was a new comer to the political scene--aside from being Kouandété's protege, his background was fairly inauspicious. Added rank and affiliation to Kouandete, I think that is proper weighting for this article, but if you disagree--let me know. 4. Added details about the functioning and policies of the administration. A. added details about founding charter and terms of presidential council. B. The article clarifies that all legislative and executive power was in the council. C. Added details about the few policies which were actually passed during the government, but it was largely ineffective. D. Added issues about the appeasement of certain sectors (mainly unions) in the administration and about public reaction to the removal from the coup. Let me know any other, remaining, or new problems. Cheers. AbstractIllusions (talk) 02:32, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for taking this up and responding to the points in the review. I'll give it a GA pass. Thanks for helping improve the quality of African topics here on WP. - Lemurbaby (talk) 13:24, 21 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sesel Sorry for the silence on this issue. I was away for a time. As the person who created this particular name for the article (and who did most of the content editing on the page), I struggled with the title. But looking at the other Presidential Councils shows that the standard is obviously the name at the time (a page I also created that has been moved, so I should have caught this). I think there is a case to make for the use of Benin with the mess of names along the coast, but I can't imagine much lost value with (Dahomey). So, yes: Presidential Council (Dahomey) should probably be the title. I'm always one for more consensus, so do you think we should get more input from other editors? AbstractIllusions (talk) 17:08, 18 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
