another election first. The first directly held elections in the country's history took place on 19 June 1954 and the CPP won 72 out of 104 seats, the GCP (the last rump of the UGCC) were routed winning only 1 seat and so it was left to the Northern People's Party (NPP) with 12 seats to form the official opposition. Dr J. B. Danquah, and Mr. William Ofori-Atta both lost their seats and Dr K. A. Busia, won his seat by a mere 11 votes. However, the euphoria surrounding this massive victory was soon to turn sour with a sudden turn in events that ushered the country through a period of instability and violence, the like of which had never been seen before or since. The violent years: 1954–1956 In March 1954, and before the June elections the government took a decision to fix the price of cocoa at £3.12 shillings in response to the Seers and Ross "Report on Finance and Physical Problems of Development in the Gold Coast" to contain looming inflation. Contrary to inaccurate historical accounts, the CPP did not promise in its manifesto to raise farm gate prices in its 1954 election and in August 1954, Mr. K.A. Gbedemah as finance minister introduced the Cocoa Duty and Development funds bill in parliament based on the cabinet's decision in the March. In his presentation to parliament, Gbedemah argued that he was seeking to deal with the ‘fragility’ of the Gold Coast economy highlighted by the Seers and Ross report stemming from an over-reliance on one commodity for nearly 60 percent of export revenues. While cocoa prices were enjoying a boon on the world market in 1954, there was recognition by those who took a long-term view that this was unsustainable (as it turned out prices fell £500 per ton in 1954 to £200 in 1956) and in any case, the farmers needed to be shielded from such fluctuations through a guaranteed farm gate price. As part of the diversification strategy to reduce the risk of over-dependence, any windfall would be used to expand other sectors of the economy. Naturally the farmers, who wanted a share of higher world prices for their produce were unhappy about this and demanded a repeal of the bill. However, what started out as the natural response of an aggrieved sector of the country over policy was hijacked by disgruntled political activists and