GUEYE LAMINE

Gueye Lamine (1891-1968) was a lawyer, teacher, magistrate and the most outstanding politician in “French-speaking” Tropical Africa from 1945 until his death. He was deputy mayor of Dakar during the colonial era, and after independence became President of the Senegalese National Assembly.

He was born at Madina (Republic of Mali, then French Sudan) on September 20, 1891, in a Saint Louisian family of Moslem traders. He belonged to that minority of Senegalese “who came from towns enjoying full commune status” like St Louis, Daker, Refisque and Goree, and who began to elect their municipal councilors and a Deputy to the French Assembly from the end of the 19th century. In 1916 the first black deputy from Senegal, Blaise Diagne, got Clémenceau to unequivocally recognise their status as French citizens while at the same time they remained Moslems by religion.

From the age of 6 to 12, he received a traditional Arabic education and then went to Ecole Faidherbe before it became a secondary school and obtained the Primary School Certificate. He then went to France for further studies (an exceedingly rare event at the time) and obtained the Higher School Certificate and a first degree in Mathematics. He later studied law and obtained a Doctorate degree at Paris in 1921 with a thesis on “the political status of Senegalese originating from the complete communes”.

During his stay in Paris, he took part in the third session of the 1921 Pan-African Congress initiated by W.E.B. Du Bois. The same year, he was accepted by the Law Courts of French West Africa as defense counsel and taught mathematics at the W. Ponty Teacher Training College at Goree on a part-time basis. The political scene in Senegal was at the time dominated by Blaise Diagne, who was elected deputy in 1914.

Diagne’s election signified a victory for the black electorate, forming the majority, over the Creoles and half-castes, who had until then monopolised all political posts. Lamine Gueye, the first African lawyer to be called to the Bar, was naturally led to combine his professional life with political activity. He defended the municipalities of Dakar and Rufisque, a stronghold of the Diagnists, against the colonial Trading Society of Maurel and Prom of Bodeaux.

From 1924 he became directly involved in politics; he bought the A.O.F. newspaper (established in 1928) from the former Deputy Carpot who was defeated in 1914 (and in 1919) by Diagne, and was elected Mayor of St. Louis in 1925 against Diagne’s supporters. A little later he was reconciled with Diagne by a truce which, in his own words, “was not always without suffering an eclipse”. He lost the mayoralty of St. Louis in 1927 and left Senegal for some time to become a magistrate (Appeal of Court Judge) in Reunion and Martinique.

During the absence of Lamine Gueye the opposition to Diagne the opposition to Diagne, who had made it up with the colonial Trading Societies in 1923, and had concluded the “Bordeaux Pact” with them, was kept up by Galandou Diouf, backed by the weekly “le Periscope” (the Periscope) on an anti-colonialist platform. When Diagne died in 1934, Galandou Diof was elected but he soon broke with his former comrades and became reconciled to the administration.

When Lamine Gueye presented himself against him in 1934, he was supported by former Diagnist but opposed by his old comrades. When in 1936 he again stood against Galandou Diouf he received the combined support of former Diagnists and the progressives of the “Periscope”, but he was again defeated.

But the deputy for Senegal found himself in a difficult position with the victory of the “Front Populaire” ( Popular Front) in the same elections in France; Galandou Diouf had taken a stand against the Front Populaire. Now it was this Party which was in power and a socialist, Marius Moutet, had been appointed Minister for French Overseas Territories.

The coalition which backed Lamine Gueye’s candidacy and had taken on the name “Senegalese Socialist Party” formed a “Comit de Front Populaire” (Committee for the Popular Front) in July 1936 with the French Socialist Party (S.F.I.O.) and other leftist groups and personalities (including the President of the Chamber of Commerce). In 1938 the S.F.I.O. Socialist Party and the Senegalese Socialist Party merged at the Thies Congress to form the Socialist Federation of Senegal (S.F.I.O.) affiliated to the French S.F.I.O. Socialist Party.

Political life resumed in 1945 after the war, and Lamine Gueye, the only well-known survivor of the previous political duels, made his triumphant return. For the first time, some non-citizens were given the right to vote in the Constituent Assembly elections. Lamine Gueye led the powerful mass movement which sprang up during the elections under the name “Bloc African”.

Senegal now had the right to elect two deputies, and took as its second nominee the young agrégé in Grammar, Leopold Sedar Senghor. Both were triumphantly elected and re-elected in 1946 under the same conditions. Lamine Gueye was elected Mayor of Dakar in 1945 and was to be constantly re-elected to the post until 1961 when he retired.

He was elected general adviser or member of the Territorial Assembly of Senegal in 1947 and was constantly re-elected to the Assembly of which he remained president until 1956. He was also a member and President of the Grand Conseil of A.O.F.

Soon after 1946 the “Bloc African” was rendered inactive for the benefit of the Socialist Party, S.F.I.O. to which the two Senegalese deputies were affiliated. Lamine Gueye became a member of the board of directors of the Socialist S.F.I.O. Party in France from 1946 to 1957.

The first Constituent Assembly of 1945-46, on a motion by Lamine Gueye, granted French citizenship to the former “native subject” (Loi Lamine Gueye) and abolished forced labour. The rejection of the Constitution in May 1946 by referendum and the counter-offensive in colonial circles against the Second Constituent Assembly led the overseas deputies to form an “intergroup” in which Lamine Gueye played an important role.

But the Minister for the colonies, Marius Moutet, backed by the socialist group, forced the adoption of “title VIII” of the Constitution rejecting the right of the former colonies to self-government and to determine their status. Caught between the aspiration of the various people and their link with the Socialist Party and the Ministry, the socialist deputies of Senegal found themselves in an unpleasant situation.

In October 1946, they together with Felix Houphouet Boigny and the majority of African deputies, called the Bamako Congress where the Rassemblement Democratique African (R.D.A) was to be formed, but under pressure from the Ministry which was fighting against this initiative, denounced as a “communist venture”, they refrained from going to Bamako.

During the years from 1946 to 1948 there developed first, a silent, then an open rivalry between Lamine Gueye and L.S. Senghor. Lamine Gueye with the title of “political director” (Directeur politique) of the Socialist Federation of Senegal controlled the great municipalities and the Party’s machinery; he depended on the voters of the old communes of Dakar, St Louis and Rufisque and used the same electoral devices that were in vogue before the war Senghor, however, relied on the rural electorate of former “subjects”, who now formed the greatest of voters. He reproached the Socialist Party for not sufficiently taking account of African realities, and for subordinating its African policy to foreign interests.

In 1948, Senghor broke with Lamine Gueye and the S.F.I.O. to form his own Party, the “Bloc Démocratique Sénégalais”, and, on the French parliamentary level, the group of the ‘Indépendants d’Outre-Mar’ (I.O.M) with overseas deputies who were generally moderate and often Catholic in inspiration.

Lamine Gueye was defeated in the 1951 elections by the B.D.S. In 1952, the Socialist Party lost its majority in the Territorial Assembly to Senghor’s Party; and in 1956, Lamine Gueye was again defeated in the legislative elections as well as in the November municipal elections. The B.D.S. won all the municipalities except Dakar, where Lamine Gueye narrowly retained the mayoralty, and St. Louis.

However, the policy of assimilation which was always advocated by Lamine Gueye  and sustained by the former “citizens” was becoming increasingly outmoded. In 1956, the Socialist Party in Senegal separated from the S.F.I.O. and formed the “Movement Socialiste African” (African Socialist Movement) (M.S.A.). In 1957, the coming into force of the ‘loi-cadre’ gave local power to Senghor and his supporters who had been reconciled to the former opposition affiliated to the R.D.A. Feeling that his influence was declining, and unwilling to fight a losing battle, Lamine Gueye, at last, gave in to irresistible popular wish for unity and merged his party with Senghor’s to form the ‘Union Progressiste Sénégalaise’ (U.P.S)  (Senegalese Progress Union).

Senghor had now become the dominant figure in Senegalese politics so Lamine Gueye withdrew into a secondary role. He retained the purely honorary title of ‘political head’ of the U.P.S. of which Senghor was secretary general and after independence became President of the Senegalese National Assembly.

During the period of great stress on the Senegalese political scene, President Lamine Gueye always showed wisdom and loyalty and was not compromised in the break up the 1960 of the Mali Federation which united Senegal and Soudan (Mali). In December 1962, when the President of the Council of Ministers   Mamadou Dia, staged a coup d’état by getting the police to occupy Parliament House and thus prevent voting on a censure motion, Lamine Gueye kept within the legal limits by assembling members of Parliament in his home and getting them to vote and thereby give the President of the Republic, Leopold Sedar Senghor, legal backing. The Army and Police were not long in rallying to the President’s side.

This was Lamine Gueye’s last important involvement in politics In 1966, he published his reflections as a public figure under the title of ‘An African guide-book’ showing his evolution in Senegalese politics from the “Communes” after the First World War to the modern aspirations of Africa towards independence and unity. He died at Dakar on June 10, 1968 of a protracted illness.

JEAN SURET-CANALE