Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964.
Though the campaign of 1954 gave ample indications of the PDG's popularity, nevertheless French officials declared Diawadou elected. The PDG claimed falsification, and listed the techniques deployed by Governor Parisot and his secretary-general Marchesseau. They made their political preferences public, and administrators in the countryside passed these preferences on at gatherings of villagers and chefs de canton. Diawadou's agents had a decided advantage because at election time they could take leave from their civil service jobs and they received official transport. Officials manipulated the electoral register, still limited to less than half a million. In 1951 when both ran unsuccessfully, most of Diawadou's votes came from the Fouta and most of Toure's from the Forest. By 1954, 82,980 new electors were on the electoral register — 72,056 of these were in the Fouta. Furthermore, in the cercles of Nzerekore, Kankan, Gucckedou, Forecariah, and Siguiri, where the PDG was known to be particulatly strong, 10,627 names were stricken from the electoral register. During the elections, the voting cards were not distributed by a commission, as prescribed by law, but mostly by the very chefs de canton who with their associates were also the local agents of Diawadou. Some made only Diawadou's ballot paper available to the voters. Some chefs de cantons also presided at the polls where the secrecy required by law did not exist. At Kissidougou, for example, Diawadou's agent chef de canton Bendou Leno presided; at Dabola the father of Diawadou, chef de canton Almamy Barry Aguibou, presided. In many polling stations the PDG representatives though duly accredited were turned away; sometimes they were beaten. Illiterates manned many of the polling stations, men who could not write an official report or record the results. Administrators wrote in the figures as they saw fit, sent them by coded cable to Conakry where they were added under the personal supervision of the governor. Only global figures became public, and the PDG representatives at the time could obtain no official breakdown of the total 141,701 for Diawadou, 85,906 for Toure; 7,995 for the socialists, 5 RPF and 16,000 for various independents. 1
Many people refused to accept the official results. During the rest of 1954 and 1955, except in the Fouta Djallon, there were periodic incidents involving partisans of PDG and BAG. On the coast and in the forest people chased their chiefs out of villages and towns. Administration broke down as officials and the élus lost influence. Barry Diawadou required police protection in Conakry while large
1. Figures from special number of 15 March-1 April 1955 of Afrique Informations.
