by the Tutsi elite. This article was followed up in La Presse Africaine and other Congolese and Burundian newspapers with a series of other articles detailing the history of relations between the groups and the king's status. King Mutara and the Tutsi elite dismissed the claims, retorting that no ethnic impediment to social mobility existed and that the Hutu and Tutsi were indistinguishable. The next catalyst for the breakdown of relations was the occurrence of the country's first democratic elections under universal male suffrage in September 1956. The populace were permitted to vote for the sub-chiefs, and 66% of those elected were Hutu. Higher positions in the traditional and colonial hierarchies were still appointed rather than elected, and these remained overwhelmingly Tutsi. The imbalance between these two weightings highlighted the perceived unfairness of the system for Hutu. Before 1956, the monarchy and prominent Tutsi had been relaxed about the timeline of independence, convinced that full power would be transferred to them from the Belgians in due course. Alarmed at the growing influence of the Hutu and the tensions between the groups, they began campaigning in late 1956 for a rapid transition to independence. King Rudahigwa and the Tutsi-dominated Conseil Supérieur proposed new ministries of finance, education, public works and the interior run by them, independent of Belgium, through a manifesto called mise en point. The Hutu counter-elite responded swiftly to this development, denouncing it as a plot by the Tutsi to cement Tutsi preeminence in post-independence Rwanda. Kayibanda, with eight other Hutu leaders, began work on an alternative work known as the Bahutu Manifesto. The authors were assisted in writing this document by young Belgian clergymen sympathetic to the Hutu cause. The Bahutu Manifesto criticised indirect Belgian rule, calling for the abolition of ubuhake and the development of a middle class. It was the first document referring to the Tutsi and Hutu as separate races, labelling the Tutsi as "Hamites" and accusing them of establishing a "racist monopoly". The manifesto called for a transfer of power from the Tutsi to the Hutu based on "statistical law". The release of these competing visions for the country's future brought attention from Belgian politicians and the public to Rwanda's social problems which, up until that point, had only been the concern of sociologists and sections of the colonial administration. In 1958, Gitera visited the king at his palace in Nyanza. Although Gitera had