Ahmed Sékou Touré
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Ahmed Sékou Touré (January 9, 1922 - March 26, 1984) was the first President of Guinea (1958 - 1984).
Born into a poor family, Touré acquired clear socialist leanings. He was at first a labour union activist and became General Secretary of the Postal Workers' Union by 1945. His popularity is said to have been due in part to his stirring speeches.
Touré became a key founder of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain, the party that led Guinea to independence. In 1956 he was elected Mayor of Conakry and also Guinea's deputy to the French National Assembly. After his party won the referendum for independence, he led Guinea out of the French Community in 1958, becoming President.
Touré then founded the Parti Democratique de Guinée (PDG), which won 57 of 60 seats in the parliamentary elections in 1958. In that same year, Touré supervised the drafting of the Constitution. He named the PDG as the only legitimate political party in Guinea, outlawed all other parties and ruled the country as a dictator until his death in 1984. He has been quoted as saying: “We prefer poverty in liberty to riches in slavery", though his critics have questioned both his degree of poverty and his people's degree of liberty.
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