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发布时间：2006-06-24 18:59     点击：

Small country, big example

Still an unusual success for democracy—★fingers crossed[1]

ON March 5th, Benin went to the polls for the fourth presidential election since multi-party democracy was introduced in 1990: no mean achievement in west Africa. Even more impressive was the fact that President Mathieu Kérékou did not ★stand for[2] re-election, nor did his great rival, Nicéphore Soglo, who was president from 1991-96. Both have passed the constitution’s age l_______① of 70. （1）That respect for the constitution goes admirably against Africa’s trend for heads of state to change the law to stay even longer in office.

Benin has fewer than 8m people. It is one of the p______② countries on earth. And yet, in Africa, it is also a democratic ★exemplar[3]. Many of Africa’s former French colonies brought in multi-party democracy only when forced to by the French—in return for more aid—in June 1990. （2）Having abandoned Marxism, Mr Kérékou, Benin’s president and military ruler, not only legalised opposition parties several months before then, but also ★stood down[4] after his electoral defeat to Mr Soglo in 1991. So Benin became the first African country where an incumbent ran for re-election, lost and graciously ★bowed out[5]. Since then, d_________③ has implanted itself strongly in the minds of Benin’s citizens. “Our history is so terrible, with coups and years of problems, that now we all care about democracy very deeply,” says one of them. 

NOTES：（LONGMAN）

1.keep…fingers crossed希望能成功，如愿

to hope that something will happen the way you want

e.g. We’rekeepingourfingers crossedthat she’s going to be OK.我们衷心希望她能一切都好。Bingham is keeping his fingers crossed that Gray’s withdrawal is the only one.宾厄姆希望除了格雷没人会退出。

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