The Rassemblement Démocratique Africain, commonly known as the RDA and variously translated as African Democratic Assembly and African Democratic Rally, was a political party in French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa which was important in the decolonization of the French empire. The RDA was composed of different political parties throughout the French colonies in Africa and lasted from 1946 until 1958. At certain points, the RDA was the largest political party in the colonies in Africa and played a key role in the French government headed by the Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR). Although the regional party largely dissolved in 1958 with the independence votes for the colonies, many of the national parties retained the RDA in their name and some continue to do so. The political ideology of the party did not endorse outright secession of colonies from France, but it was anti-colonial and pan-Africanist in its political stances. The RDA was formed at a conference in Bamako, in the colony of French Sudan, in 1946. The aim of the conference was to unite African leaders affiliated with the French Socialist Party with those affiliated with the French Communist Party together to work on reconfiguring the relationship between France and the African colonies. However, the French Socialist leaders in France saw the proposal as undermining their relationships and so forced their African members to withdraw from the conference. The result was that the resulting party was exclusively supported by the Communist Party, a situation which shaped the early positions of the party and its political opportunities. The leader of the party from this first conference until the very end was Félix Houphouët-Boigny of the Ivory Coast. Because of the withdrawal of the socialists from the party, the RDA was initially in a coalition with the French Communist Party in the French National Assembly. However, this coalition alienated many RDA delegates who eventually split with the RDA and formed the rival Indépendants d'Outre-Mer (IOM) party. Continued French hostility to the RDA, a weakening of the Communist Party in France, and the defection of delegates to the IOM, resulted in the RDA ending its coalition with the communists and joining the small Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance (UDSR). Following a number of years of electoral defeats and French repression of the party, the RDA returned to prominence in regional politics by performing very well in