Dahomeyan Unity Party
다호메 통일당
A party of the Republic of Dahomey (now Benin) formed on 13 November 1960 by the merger of Hubert Maga's Dahomeyan Democratic Rally, Sourou-Migan Apithy's party, the National Liberation Movement and others. It won all 60 seats in that year's election and became the sole legal party when the main opposition was banned in 1961. It was dissolved after Maga was overthrown in a military coup in October 1963.
In depth
According to the French source, the Dahomeyan Unity Party was born on 13 November 1960 from the merger of Hubert Maga's Dahomeyan Democratic Rally (RDD), Sourou-Migan Apithy's Party of Dahomeyan Nationalists (PND), the National Liberation Movement (MLN) co-founded by Jean Pliya and Albert Tévoédjrè, and several small dissident groups, with Maga as leader of the new formation. Uniting the RDD's base among the Islamised population of the north and the PND's Yoruba base in the south-east, it set itself the goals of overcoming ethnic and regional divisions, national rallying, balancing the state budget through austerity and African unity, and opted for "African socialism".
Before the 1960 election Maga had a new constitution adopted that changed the electoral system and let the party win all 60 seats in the National Assembly, with Maga as President and Apithy as Vice-President. At its first conference on 21 March 1961 the party decided to join the African Democratic Rally (RDA), which accepted it as its Dahomeyan section in place of Justin Ahomadégbé's Dahomeyan Democratic Union (UDD). The UDD was dissolved and banned on 10 April 1961, and after Albert Tévoédjrè, Secretary of State for Information, announced on 28 May that a plot had been foiled, Ahomadégbé was arrested and Dahomey entered the era of the single party.
Maga was the party's president at its founding and became its secretary-general after a change of statutes in 1962; its political bureau had 25 members. In October 1963, as the unions called for a general strike, the army led by Colonel Christophe Soglo overthrew Maga on the 27th, and Soglo dissolved the party by ordinance. Ahomadégbé and Apithy then formed a new single party, the Dahomeyan Democratic Party.