Founded 1975 Headquarters Bamako, Mali | Dissolved 1991 | |
Newspaper L'Essor-La Voix du Peuple | ||
Democratic Union of the Malian People (French: Union Démocratique du Peuple Malien, UDPM) was a political party in 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 as of the mid-1980s.
History
The party was founded by the CMLN military junta regime in order to provide it with political legitimacy. On 22 September 1975 Moussa Traoré announced that the party would be formed, with himself as general secretary. Upon the restoration of civilian rule in 1979, it became the only legal party in Mali.
The UDPM was organized along democratic centralist lines, but was not a Marxist formation. 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. This was repeated in elections in 1982, 1985 and 1988.
Following a coup by Amadou Toumani Touré in 1991, the party was dissolved in the same year.