Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964.
As early as 1947 Macenta elected the first and only RDA representative to the conseil général, Camara Kaman. In the 1952 territorial assembly Nzerekore elected an RDA councillor Gnan Félix Mathos. Then in 1953 Sékou Touré won in a by-election in Beyla. He defeated, among others, the deputy Mamba Sano, and cited the victory as one more proof that the administration had falsified the elections of 1951.
The territorial assembly provided a convenient platform from which Sékou Touré attacked the established ethnic and regional party leaders. He was isolated among the élus and never won the votes within the assembly, but he won support outside. This is how he explained the budget of the territorial assembly, particularly the category of compulsory expenditures.
The white man is made of the same stuff as the black, he has the same blood. He came to us as a brother …and brought gifts as a brother …but lo! how surprising from a rich hrother in Africa, he asked to be paid for his goods…. Then he did more. Of every five francs he took, all but 50 centimes went to maintain himsel in style 1.
Toure's lengthy muckraking speeches drew large crowds and he usually supplemented his remarks in the streets of Conakry. He considered himself a representative of the PDG, and travelled 'to account for his mandate to each village not of his electoral district, but rather of the entire Territory'. 2 On 12 April 1954, Sékou Touré once again opposed Yacine Diallo in the assembly, this time in a heated debate on the issue of allowances for the parlementaires. He claimed the élus already have a 'style of living which proved they were not short of money, since some construct new houses costing millions and others buy new cars'. 3 Feeling ran high against the increase in Conakry; nevertheless the assembly voted it. Shortly afterwards, Yacine Diallo died, and PDG supporters did not hesitate to point up the coincidence.
To replace Yacine there was a by-election in June. It was the occasion for a political realignment. The PDG launched an all-out campaign to elect Sékou Touré even while they claimed, after the experiences in 1951, to expect falsification again. Fear of the PDG organization, teamwork, methods, territorial structure, and growing popularity caused the ethnic and regional associations to change. In 1954 they unified, into a single party, territorial in scale, the Bloc Africain de Guinée (BAG).
1. Information based on interview, 1956.
2. Touré. L'Action potitique du PDG…, tome i, op. oit., p. 17.
3. Guinée Franç aise, Assemblée Territoriale, Session ordinaire mars-avril 1954. p.v. Conakry, 1954, p. 221
