African Studies Review | 2021
Alpha Oumar Konaré. Histoire des partis politiques au Mali : Du pluralisme politique au parti unique, 1946–1968. Bamako: Cauris Livre, 2016. 607 pp. €57. Paper. ISBN: 978-9995260309.
Abstract
Histoire des partis politiques au Mali: Du pluralism politique au parti unique, 1946– 1968, by the former President of the Republic of Mali Alpha Oumar Konaré (1992–2002), is presented as thefirst offive volumes that will cover the history of political parties in Mali from the post-Second World War period to the present day. Although it contains a significant amount of information, some unpublished, let us be clear from the start that this is not an academic or historical work, nor even a real book. Indeed, it is in fact a succession of cards presenting the associations and political parties created in French Sudan/ Mali during the period covered. Each card is built on the following model: general information on the organization (creation, general objectives, headquarters, important members); a chronology presenting the main events in the life of the organization; and associated documents (statutes, correspondence betweenmembers or with the authorities, minutes of assemblies, press releases, facsimiles of leaflets, etc.). The book contains six files on associations that served as a crucible for political activists and thirty-seven files on political parties. It is regrettable that the authormakes no comments, that the page-and-a-half long introduction does not address the subject, and that there is no conclusion either. Let us try to draw some lessons from this collection of working documents. While history has remembered that the period of political pluralism which preceded Mali’s independence was marked by the rivalry between the Sudanese Progressive Party and the Sudanese Union-African Democratic Rally (US-RDA), the exhaustive list of political parties shows the profusion of organizations in existence. Some are very short-lived, while others change names or merge, illustrating the political proliferation that characterized the end of the colonial period, through the immediate appropriation of the party form, as soon as political liberalization offered the possibility. Another aspect of political life emerges through the chronologies or the reproduction of internal documents of the parties, and that is the bitterness of the relations not only between the political formations but also within