African Socialist Movement

African Socialist Movement (French: Mouvement Socialiste Africain, also known as the MSA) was a political party in French West Africa. The MSA was formed following a meeting of the Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière (SFIO) federations of Cameroon, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, French Sudan (now Mali), Gabon, Guinea, Niger, Oubangui-Chari (now the Central African Republic), and Senegal; the meeting was held in Conakry from January 11 to January 13, 1957. At that meeting it was decided that the African federations would break with its French parent organisation and form the MSA.^[1]

The first meeting of the leading committee of MSA met in Dakar from February 9 to February 10 the same year. Two SFIO delegates attended the session. MSA opted for a federalist solution for French West Africa. On March 26, 1958, the MSA signed a declaration in Paris merging itself into the African Regroupment Party (PRA).^[1]

Leadership

At its founding, Lamine Guèye became the president of MSA, Barry III the general secretary and Djibo Bakary the deputy general secretary.^[2]

Sections

The Senegalese section of MSA was the Senegalese Party of Socialist Action (PSAS), and it was led by Lamine Guèye.^[1] In Guinea, the Socialist Democracy of Guinea was the section of MSA.^[3] The Sudanese section of MSA was the Progressive Sudanese Party, while what became the Niger section retained the MSA name as the Mouvement Socialiste Africain-Sawaba.^[4]

References

1. Zuccarelli, François. La vie politique sénégalaise (1940-1988). Paris: CHEAM, 1988.
2. Schmidt, Elizabeth (2007-01-01). Cold War and Decolonization in Guinea, 1946-1958. Ohio University Press. ISBN 9780821417638.
3. O'Toole, Thomas, and Janice E. Baker. Historical Dictionary of Guinea. Historical dictionaries of Africa, no. 94. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 2005. p. 62
4. Fuglestad, Finn. Djibo Bakary, the French, and the Referendum of 1958 in Niger, published in The Journal of African History, Vol. 14, No. 2 (1973), pp. 313-330