Mamadou Dia

Mamadou Dia (born July 18, 1910 in Khombole , † January 25, 2009 in Dakar ) was Senegal's Prime Minister from 1960 to 1962 .

Political career

Dia attended the École normal William Ponty at Dakar and became a teacher.

In 1948 he was elected to the French Senate , of which he was a member until 1956. He also studied law and economics in Paris . Politically, he was active in the Union progressiste Sénégalaise party of the later President Léopold Sédar Senghor . Since January 2, 1956 he was a member of the National Assembly in Paris. After Senegal became autonomous in 1958, he became head of government on May 18, 1958. In the Mali Federation between Senegal and neighboring Mali , he took over the post of Vice President after independence from France on June 20, 1960; however, the federation broke up after about two months.

prime minister

Mamadou Dia on a visit to Zouérat (Mauritania) in 1962

In Senegal he remained in the office of Prime Minister. In June 1962 he made a trip to several states of the Eastern bloc and Senegal established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union . Contradictions between the moderate Senghor and the more radical socialist Dia escalated on December 17, 1962. In order to prevent a vote of no confidence in parliament, the parliament building was occupied by the army and police by order of Dias. However, the parliamentarians evaded the house of the parliamentary president and spoke out of suspicion to Dia with 48 of 80 votes. The chief of staff supported Dia, but troops loyal to Senghor occupy the radio station and arrest Dia and his supporters. The next day, Parliament authorized Senghor to draft a new constitution with a presidential system and to have it confirmed in a referendum . In January MPs decided to bring Dia to justice. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and two other former ministers to twenty years each. The president did not appoint a prime minister again until 1970.

Further career

His imprisonment, which he spent in Kédougou in the east of the country, ended in 1974. On January 27, 1983, he stood in the presidential elections against Senghor's 1981 successor, Abdou Diouf . He took third place with 1.39% of the vote after the victorious Diouf and later President Abdoulaye Wade . In 1985 he published his memoirs under the title Mémoires d'un militant du Tiers Monde . In January 2002 he tried unsuccessfully to have the 1963 sentence annulled.

literature

• Ronald Segal, African Profiles . Prestel 1963 to the events of 1962
• Fischer Weltalmanach - Biographies on Contemporary History since 1945 , Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag 1985, ISBN 3596245532

Web links

• Election results in African Elections Database (Engl.)
• Entry in the archive of the French National Assembly (French)