In the mid-1950s it created a broad coalition led by urban leftists but forged of conservative rural notables, especially from Hausa areas, which dominated the nascent Nigerien independence movement.
The PPN was allied to the pan-colony African Democratic Rally (RDA), which itself caucused with the French Communist Party in the National Assembly.
Earlier splits of the PPN, of conservative Djerma traditional leaders and a small Franco-Nigerien contingent in 1946, were added to 1948 in reaction to Bakary and his circle and to the continued association with the RDA.
Djibo Bakary was expelled from the RDA for his refusal to break from the PCF, and the left of the PPN formed the UDN (Nigerien Democratic Union) in 1954.
[1] The UDN, although small in numbers and led by a leftist Djerma intellectual, had powerful support amongst elements of the Hausa east of Niger, who viewed the UNIS (one of whose leaders was the Djermakoy of Dosso) as unrepresentative of their interests.
[citation needed] The 1955 elections saw less than 250,000 votes cast in a nation of almost 3 million, and these were mostly won in blocks directed by the elite of Djermakoys, Sultans, Mais, Sarkis, and chiefs.
[citation needed] Between 1954 and 1956, Bakary and the UDN managed to cobble together a coalition of Zinder merchants, Maradi notables, the Djermakoy and his BNA party, and the tiny urban labour and leftist movements of Niamey.
In the run up to the 1956 Niger colony municipal elections, while negotiations were still ongoing to create the MSA bloc, the Nigerien party preemptively rechristened itself Mouvement Socialiste Africain–Sawaba.
Its Hausa, Fulani and Djerma traditionalist leaders deserted the party and the French withdrew their support and began to aid the PPN, who had formed their own coalition to advocate for a "Yes" vote on the referendum.
[4][1][5] In June 1960, 18 Sawabists were arrested on conspiracy charges, including Abdoulaye Mamani, Amadou Sekou and Issaka Koke.
In November 1964 the Sawaba guerrillas entered Niger attacking the small desert outpost of Tamanrasset, and after engaging in a high-profile skirmish, were arrested.
[10] With the overthrow of Malian leader Modibo Keita in 1968, and the eventual death of Chairman Mao Zedong in China, the party reoriented itself back to a pro-Soviet position.
[11] Following the 1974 coup which removed Diori, Bakary returned to Niger in an attempt to bring Sawaba above ground, but he, like his old rival, was confined to house arrest under the military regime in 1977, accused of breaking his pledge to say out of politics.
In 1992, the tiny party split further, with the UDFR–Sawaba moving to a center-left position and from 1991 to 1996 becoming a minor member of the Alliance of the Forces of Change (AFC) coalition, ironically beside the reformation of its bitter enemy from the 1950s, the PPN.