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Seychelles
After both parties campaigned for independence in the 1974 election, two London conferences and a coalition government produced a republican constitution; Seychelles became independent on 29 June 1976 with Mancham as president and René as prime minister.
- Independence
- June 29, 1976
- Before
- Seychelles (British Crown Colony)
- Metropole
- United Kingdom
- Leader
- James Mancham
- Transition
- Negotiated
- Movement
- Seychelles Democratic Party (SDP) and Seychelles People's United Party (SPUP)
“I want to pay tribute to the Seychelles political parties and to the leaders of those parties, Mr. Mancham and Mr. René for the way in which they have worked together with the object of ensuring a successful and peaceful future for Seychelles.”
— Edward Rowlands, Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, moving the Seychelles Bill in the House of Commons, 24 May 1976
From French Plantation Colony to Crown Colony
The uninhabited archipelago was first landed on by an East India Company expedition in 1609, explored by the Frenchman Lazare Picault in 1742 and 1744, and formally annexed to France in 1756, when it was named after the French finance minister. France surrendered the islands to Britain in 1810 and ceded them by the Treaty of Paris of 1814. The abolition of slavery in the 1830s pushed the planters from cotton and grain to coconut, vanilla and cinnamon. Administered for a century as a dependency of Mauritius, Seychelles became a separate Crown Colony on 31 August 1903. A Legislative Council with elected members followed in 1948.
Mancham's SDP against René's SPUP
Contested party elections began in 1963, and in 1964 two new parties replaced the old groupings: the Seychelles Democratic Party of James Mancham, a young lawyer who long favoured closer integration with Britain, and the Seychelles People's United Party of France-Albert René, which campaigned for socialism and independence. A constitution of October 1970 brought a governing council with an elected majority; the SDP won ten of fifteen seats and Mancham became Chief Minister. In April 1974 both parties stood for early independence. The SDP took thirteen of fifteen seats on about 52 per cent of the vote, a distortion of constituency boundaries that the SPUP denounced. Of 41,833 votes cast, only eleven went to the single candidate opposing independence.
Two London Conferences and a Coalition
A constitutional conference in London in March 1975 failed to agree on the electoral system and the size of the legislature, but the parties accepted an interim constitution for internal self-government and formed a coalition in June 1975, with Mancham as Prime Minister from October. An Electoral Review Commission under Tun Tan Siew Sin reported in December, and when the conference resumed in January 1976 all twenty-five members of the House of Assembly took part. Joint proposals for a republic were adopted unanimously and published as a White Paper (Cmnd. 6409). The Seychelles Act 1976 received royal assent on 27 May, and at midnight on 28–29 June 1976 Seychelles became a republic within the Commonwealth, with Mancham as President and René as Prime Minister; Aldabra, Farquhar and Desroches were returned from the British Indian Ocean Territory.
Chronology
- 1756 — France formally annexes the islands
- 1814 — Treaty of Paris cedes Seychelles to Britain
- 31 August 1903 — Separate Crown Colony, no longer a dependency of Mauritius
- 1964 — SDP (Mancham) and SPUP (René) founded
- November 1970 — Elections under a new constitution; Mancham Chief Minister
- 25 April 1974 — Both parties campaign for independence; SDP wins 13 of 15 seats
- March 1975 — First London constitutional conference; coalition formed in June
- January 1976 — Resumed conference agrees a republican constitution
- 29 June 1976 — Independence; Mancham President, René Prime Minister
- 5 June 1977 — Coup while Mancham is in London; René becomes President
Aftermath
On 4–5 June 1977, while Mancham attended the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London, some sixty SPUP supporters trained in Tanzania seized power; René, who denied prior knowledge, was sworn in as President, suspended the constitution and ruled by decree until a new constitution in June 1979 made the renamed Seychelles People's Progressive Front the sole legal party. A mercenary raid led by Michael Hoare failed in November 1981 and an army mutiny was put down with Tanzanian help in August 1982. René announced a return to multiparty politics in December 1991; Mancham came home in April 1992, a new constitution was approved by referendum in June 1993, and René won the first multiparty election that July. He resigned in April 2004 in favour of James Michel.
Legacy
Seychelles gained independence by consensus, with a coalition and a unanimous conference, only for that settlement to be overturned within a year. The islands then spent fourteen years as a one-party socialist state before a negotiated return to multiparty rule in 1993, and the party René founded governed continuously until 2020.