The Democratic Union of the Malian People (french: Union Démocratique du Peuple Malien, UDPM) was a military-backed

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

Mali Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mali ...

. Its main organ was the daily newspaper '' L'Essor – La Voix du Peuple'', which had a circulation of 40,000. It was the largest newspaper in the country during the mid-1980s.''Hela Världen i Fakta '86''.

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

: Bonnier Fakta Bokförlag, 1985. p. 163

History

The party was founded by the CMLN military junta in order to provide the regime with political legitimacy.

Moussa Traoré Moussa Traoré (25 September 1936 – 15 September 2020) was a Malian soldier, politician, and dictator who was President of Mali from 1968 to 1991. As a Lieutenant, he led the military ousting of President Modibo Keïta in 1968. Thereafter he ...

announced the party's formation on 22 September 1975, with himself as

general secretary Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the organization. The term is derived ...

.Imperato, Pascal James. ''Mali: A Search for Direction''. Boulder: Westview Press, 1989. Upon the restoration of civilian rule in 1979, it became the only legal party in Mali. The UDPM organized itself along the Marxist–Leninist principle of democratic centralism. However, as with many other African socialist parties, it did not identify itself as

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

due to the perceived association between Marxism and atheism; the Malian political elite was mostly Muslim, and Muslim religious leaders played a key role in the independence movement. UDPM had a Central Executive Bureau with 19 members and a National Council with 137 members. As the party's general secretary, Traoré was the only candidate for president of the republic. He was automatically elected for a six-year term and confirmed in office in the 1979 general elections, whilst voters were presented with a single list of UDPM candidates for the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the rep ...

. This was repeated in elections in 1982, 1985 and 1988. Following a coup by

Amadou Toumani Touré Amadou Toumani Touré (4 November 19489 November 2020) was a Malian politician. He supervised Mali's first multiparty elections as chairman of the transitional government (1991–1992), and later became the second democratically-elected Presiden ...

in 1991, the party was dissolved in the same year.

Electoral history

Presidential Elections

National Assembly elections

References

{{Authority control Defunct political parties in Mali Political parties established in 1975 Political parties disestablished in 1991 Parties of one-party systems Socialism in Mali Banned socialist parties