The Congolese National Movement (, or MNC) is a political party in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. History Foundation The MNC was founded in 1958 as an African nationalist party within the Belgian Congo. The party was a united front organization dedicated to achieving independence "within a reasonable" time and bringing together members from a variety of political backgrounds in order to achieve independence. The MNC was created around a charter which was signed by, among others Patrice Lumumba, Cyrille Adoula and Joseph Iléo. Joseph Kasa-Vubu notably refused to sign, accusing the party of being too moderate. By the end of 1959, it claimed to have 58,000 members. The MNC was a national party with substantial support in the whole of Congo, while most other parties were based primarily on regional or ethnic allegiances and garnered support in their respective provinces. The MNC was the biggest nationalist party in the Belgian Congo but had many different factions within it which took different stances on a number of issues and was increasingly polarized between moderate évolués and the more radical mass membership. In July 1959, Iléo attempted to split the party and create a more radical party based on support of federalism rather than centralization, but his group failed to achieve mass defections from the main party. As a result of the split, the remaining majority of the party took the name MNC-Lumumba (MNC-L) but the split also divided the MNC between the Lumumba-ists who held the Stanleyville region and its faction, which became the MNC-Kalonji (MNC-K; after Albert Kalonji who became its leader after his release from prison) which attracted support in Élisabethville (modern-day Lubumbashi) and among the Baluba ethnic groups. Both groups competed in the Congo's first parliamentary elections in June 1960, in which Lumumba's party emerged as the largest nationalist faction in the country. Lumumba formed a coalition with the more conservative and federalist ABAKO party led by Joseph Kasa-Vubu. Lumumba was elected Prime Minister, while Kasa-Vubu became Congo's first President. Independence and the Congo Crisis However, the country quickly plunged into the Congo Crisis, facing mutinies among the soldiers and separatism in Katanga (led by Moise Tshombe) and South Kasai (led by Albert Kalonji). In September, Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu fell out and Kasa-Vubu dismissed Lumumba and instead appointed Joseph Iléo, a member of the Kalonji party as prime minister. In turn, Lumumba declared the President deposed,