Rassemblement Démocratique Africain
At certain points, the RDA was the largest political party in the colonies in Africa and played a key role in the French government headed by the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR).
However, the French Socialist leaders in France saw the proposal as undermining their relationships and so forced their African members to withdraw from the conference.
Following a number of years of electoral defeats and French repression of the party, the RDA returned to prominence in regional politics by performing very well in the 1956 and 1957 elections throughout the colonies.
[4] During the same period, violent anti-colonial struggles reached significant levels in many other French colonies: including the Malagasy Uprising in Madagascar and violence in the First Indochina War in Vietnam.
Following the collapse of the National Assembly elected in July 1946 and wanting to establish a pan-African party in the National Assembly, Houphouët-Boigny convinced Lamine Guèye of Senegal (who was the most prominent socialist in Africa at the time) to work towards establishing a wider political movement with the goal of autonomy for the colonies of Africa.
The debate largely focused on whether to form a permanent coalition with the Communist party or to align with them while they served RDA interests.
Although the party was to be anti-colonial and focus on increased autonomy for the French colonies, they were not advocating secession or withdrawal from France as an immediate goal.
[2] It is important to note that this dissolution coincides with American financing of Europe, including France, in the post-World War II period.
[18] The plan appeared to work when in 1948, Zinda Kaboré was killed and the Mossi chiefs in Upper Volta, who had renounced the RDA and connected with the MRP, were able to appoint Nazi Boni to fill the position.
[19] These two factors combined to make many of the National Assembly delegates, particularly those with large Catholic constituencies in their colonies, feel uneasy about the coalition with the Communist party.
Apithy, from Dahomey, in particular raised the issue many times and when his efforts to end the coalition failed, he formed a new regional political party in September 1948, the Indépendants d'Outre-Mer (IOM).
[18] The formation of the IOM coincided precisely with the naming of a new Prime Minister, Robert Schuman, to present his cabinet in what would be a very close vote.
Apithy was infuriated by this perceived slight and so cast the whole seven votes of the IOM (including those of the three absent Upper Volta members) against the cabinet.
[21] In 1948, the IOM increased its membership in the French National Assembly by adding members from the RDA, the Socialist block, and MRP politicians.
However, the IOM also saw a change in leadership as Apithy was replaced with Louis-Paul Aujoulat as a result of dissatisfaction by the Upper Volta members who wanted their votes cast to support the MRP government of Schuman.
This split made the alignment of parties in the National Assembly much more complex and allowed options for new groupings between the different factions.
[25] In response to these shifting political environments, the RDA held its second party congress in January 1949 in Treichville, Ivory Coast.
This changed in 1949 when French authorities used divisions between Houphouët-Boigny and other politicians to begin active and violent suppression of the RDA in the colony.
At the first meeting of this rival congress, supporters of Houphouët-Boigny responded with protests or rioting and in the resulting clash one person was killed and a number were injured.
[29] The tension came to a head on 28 January 1950 when Victor Biaka Boda, an RDA member of the National Assembly, disappeared in the Ivory Coast.
Upset by this event, the RDA held a protest in Dimbokro which resulted in a French army shooting of 13 Ivorian civilians.
[28] Although RDA members of the National Assembly stopped going to sessions because they were largely ignored, following the French Army shooting in Dimbokro, Senghor led much of the African membership to demand an inquiry into the incident.
[32] Following the end to the chaos in the Ivory Coast, Houphouët-Boigny began to see the alliance with the Communist party in France as counterproductive to his larger goals.
He began meetings simultaneously with both the IOM legislators and the radical wing of the RDA, led by d'Arboussier who he convinced to resign his position in the party.
As a union organizer, Touré had significant ties with the Communists throughout French West Africa and thus connected quickly with the Communist-affiliated members of the RDA.
First, they decided that Ruben Um Nyobé's Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC) was no longer affiliated with the RDA because of its radical positions against the French state.
In the 1957 Territorial Assembly elections, the RDA gained clear majorities in Guinea, Chad, the Ivory Coast, and, under the new leadership of Modibo Keïta, the French Sudan.
Of the 474 seats up for election, 236 went to RDA politicians (49.79%), 62 went to the Socialists, 58 went to the African Convention, and the rest were split between national parties without regional influence in Mauritania and Dahomey.
The situation led to many embarrassing political votes for Houphouët-Boigny and eventually the adoption of a compromise position that the party would commit itself to working for democratization of any federal arrangements which existed.
The leaders with the most linkages to the trade-unions, mainly Touré in Guinea, generally believed that it was best for the French colonies to declare independence immediately.
