tribes, a charge Aubame ridiculed. Aubame was also a leader in solving African problems, particularly developing the Gabonese standard of living and planning urban sites. On 29 September 1951, he voted to increase the minimum wage in the overseas territories of France, and served as vice president of its Commission from 1953 to 1955. He organized the Gabonese Democratic and Social Union (UDSG) in 1947, whose leadership came mostly from the interior, particularly Woleu-Ntem Province. The party in turn backed Aubame's reelection in 1951 and 1956. It had few philosophical differences with the M'ba-led Bloc Démocratique Gabonais (BDG), including advocating less economic dependence on France and faster "Africanization" of French political jobs. Fairly quickly, Gabonese politics became dominated by Aubame, supported by the missions and the administration, and M'ba, supported by the settlers. Deputy to the Gabonese Territorial Assembly In 1952 he was elected as Woleu-N'Tem's representative for Gabon's Territorial Assembly. He was re-elected in the March 1957 elections, in which the UDSG also placed first, winning 18 of the 40 contested seats, against 16 for BDG. M'ba's party won 21 seats against 19 for Aubame's party after a recount. However, in the absence of an absolute majority, on 21 May 1957, both parties were obligated to submit a list of individuals that both agreed were suitable for inclusion in the government. That same day, M'ba was appointed vice president of the government. Soon, divisions within the government grew, and Aubame resigned from his position and filed a motion of censure against the government. The motion was rejected by a 21–19 vote. With M'ba's victory, many elected UDSG members joined the parliamentary majority, giving the ruling government 29 of the 40 legislative seats. Well installed in the government, he slowly began to reinforce his power. Independence and opposition Opposition leader After voting in favor of the Franco-African Community constitutional referendum of 28 September 1958, Gabon became pseudo-politically independent. Legislative elections were scheduled for 19 June 1960 through the Scrutin de Liste voting system, a form of bloc voting in which each party offers a list of candidates who the population vote for; the list that obtains a majority of votes is declared the winner and wins all the contested seats. Through the redistricting of district and constituency boundaries, the BDG arbitrarily received 244 seats, while the UDSG received 77. In the months that followed, the legislative majority was plagued by