Modibo Keïta

Modibo Keïta (4 June 1915 – 16 May 1977) was a Malian politician who served as the first President of Mali from 1960 to 1968.

He espoused a form of African socialism.

Born and raised in Bamako, Keïta began a career as a teacher in 1936 under French colonial rule before entering politics during the 1940s.

Beginning in 1936, he worked as a teacher in Bamako, Sikasso and Tombouctou.

In 1937, he was the coordinator of the art and theater group.

Along with Ouezzin Coulibaly, he helped found the Union of French West African Teachers.

Keïta joined the Communist Study Groups (GEC) cell in Bamako.

He married Mariam Travélé, who was also a teacher, in September 1939.

Modibo Keïta was involved in various associations.

In 1943, he founded the L'oeil de Kénédougou, a magazine critical of colonial rule.

In 1945, he co-founded the Sudanese Union (US) with Mamadou Konaté which became part of the African Democratic Rally (RDA) the following year to form the US-RDA.

In 1945 Keïta was a candidate for the Constituent Assembly of the French Fourth Republic, supported by GEC and the Sudanese Democratic Party.

Later the same year, he and Mamadou Konaté founded the Bloc soudanais, which developed into the Sudanese Union.

This led to his imprisonment for three weeks in 1946 at the Prison de la Santé in Paris.

In October 1946, the African Democratic Rally (RDA) was created at a conference in Bamako of delegates from across French Africa.

While the coalition was led by Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Keïta assumed the post of RDA Secretary-General in French Sudan, and head of the Soudanese affiliate: the US-RDA.

In 1948, he was elected general councilor of French Sudan.

Being elected to several positions, his political prominence grew in the 1950s, and in 1959, he became Prime Minister of the Mali Federation, a short-lived federation of Mali and Senegal.

In 1956, he was elected mayor of Bamako and became a member of the National Assembly of France.

He twice served as secretary of state in the governments of Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury and Félix Gaillard.

Modibo Keïta became the premier of Mali Federation in 1959.

Following the federation's collapse in 1960, Mali became an independent state, and Keïta became the new country's inaugural president.

As President, Keïta soon established the US-RDA as the only official party, and began implementing socialist policies based on extensive nationalization.

In foreign affairs, Keïta supported the Non-Aligned Movement and maintained strong relations with the West despite his socialist leanings.

During the late 1960s, dissatisfaction with his regime grew due to progressive economic decline and his repressive responses to dissent.

He was elected constituent assembly president of the Mali Federation on 20 July 1960, which consisted of French Sudan and Senegal.

Senegal would later leave the federation.

After the collapse of the federation, the US-RDA proclaimed the Sudanese Republic's complete independence as the Republic of Mali.

Keïta became its first president, and soon afterward declared the US-RDA to be the only legal party.

President Keïta, whose Sudanese Union-African Democratic Rally (US/RDA) party had dominated pre-independence politics (as a member of the African Democratic Rally), moved quickly to declare a single-party state and to pursue a socialist policy based on extensive nationalization.

Keïta withdrew from the French Community and also had close ties to the Eastern bloc.

As a socialist, he led his country towards the progressive socialization of the economy; at first starting with agriculture and trade, then in October 1960 creating the SOMIEX (Malian Import and Export Company), which had a monopoly over the exports of the products of Mali, as well as manufactured and food imports (e.g. sugar, tea, powdered milk) and their distribution inside the country.

A leading Pan-Africanist, he played important roles in the drafting of the charter of the Organization of African Unity and the negotiation the 1963 Bamako Accords, which ended the Sand War between Morocco and Algeria.

A continuously deteriorating economy led to a decision to rejoin the Franc Zone in 1967 and modify some of the economic excesses.

He was deposed in a coup d'état in 1968 by Moussa Traoré.

He was overthrown in the 1968 Malian coup d'état by Moussa Traoré, who succeeded him as president and sent him to prison, where he died in 1977.

Keïta was born in Bamako-Coura, a neighborhood of Bamako, which was at the time the capital of French Sudan.

His family were Malian Muslims who claimed direct descent from the Keita dynasty, the founders of the medieval Mali Empire.

His nickname after primary schooling was Modo.

He was educated in Bamako and at the école normale William-Ponty in Dakar, where he was top of his class.