Sawaba

The Union of Popular Forces for Democracy and Progress–Sawaba (french: Union des Forces Populaires pour la Démocratie et le Progrès – Sawaba, UDFP–Sawaba) is a political party in Niger (PPN) co-leader Djibo Bakary when he was expelled from the PPN. 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. In this period it was renamed Mouvement Socialiste Africain–Sawaba, and then simply Sawaba. In pushing for complete independence from France in a 1958 referendum, the party fractured. At independence in 1960 it found itself in opposition and outlawed by Niger's first president, Hamani Diori. From exile, the party attempted an abortive guerrilla campaign in the mid-1960s, and then largely disappeared. Its leadership returned to Niger following the 1974 military coup, but soon found themselves arrested, in exile, or marginalised. Following the return of democracy in 1991, the now elderly Bakary re-founded the party as UDFP–Sawaba. In the 1993 elections it took only a small numbers of votes. Within the year the party had split, with a new faction (UDFR–Sawaba) joining the government coalition. Despite Bakary's death in 1998 and their continued electoral underachievement, both parties holding the Sawaba name continue.

History

Pre-independence

Sawaba was an outgrowth of several sources, and passed through several name changes prior to Niger's independence from France in 1959-1960. Under first the French Union and then the French Community, the colonies of French West Africa began to develop semi-autonomous political institutions in the decade and a half of the French Fourth Republic. Territories, like Niger, were granted consultative posts, first to the colonial government of West Africa (in Dakar), and later in Territorial Assemblies. These bodies had very limited powers, limited seats for Africans, and those elected were chosen by a very restricted electorate.Samuel Decalo. Historical Dictionary of Niger (3rd ed.). Scarecrow Press, Boston & Folkestone, (1997) pp. 56-59 ("Bakary"), 247-255 ("Political Parties"), 272 ("SAWABA")

In 1946 the single pro-independence party in Niger was the Nigerien Progressive Party (PPN), of which Djibo Bakary was a prominent member, and which numbered only 5,000 members. Simultaneously, these colonial territories were allowed limited representation in the French National Assembly, with Niger allotted one seat in 1946 and a second in 1948. PPN Party leader Hamani Diori filled the first, and a French educated Niamey lawyer, Djibo Bakary filled the second. Bakary, a leftist, helped push the party—already perceived as anti-French—in a populist direction. The PPN was allied to the pan-colony African Democratic Rally (RDA), which itself caucused with the French Communist Party in the National Assembly. Some elements, such as RDA leader Félix Houphouët-Boigny, were uncomfortable with this connection. Many in the PPN felt the same way, while many other, grouped around Bakary and the tiny Nigerien Trades Union movement, pulled to the left. 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. Harou Kouka and Georges Condat split to form a group (Parti Independent du Niger-Est, PINE) that quickly joined with previous dissidents to create the Union of Nigerien Independents and Sympathisers (UNIS). This relatively conservative coalition benefited from French support, and gained control of the consultative institutions of the Niger colony from 1948-1952.

Formation of UDN

In the interim, the PPN split further. The RDA, never ideologically cohesive, finally split from the French Communist Party, in 1951, in part because of the ideological differences of most African independence leaders with Communism, but also under pressure of vehemently anti-communist Colonial administrators in French West Africa, and at the urging of moderates like the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) in the French Assembly. The PPN then split on the issue of connection to the Communists, a rupture that had been growing since its formation. 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.

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