Democratic Union of the Malian People UDPN (in French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

: Union Démocratique du Peuple Malien) was a political party

Political party

A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

 in Mali

Mali

Mali , officially the Republic of Mali , is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with...

. It was founded by the CMLN military junta regime in order to provide it with political legitimacy. On September 22, 1975 Moussa Traoré

Moussa Traoré

General Moussa Traoré is a Malian soldier and politician. As a Lieutenant, he led the military ouster of President Modibo Keïta in 1968. Thereafter he served as Head of State from 1968-1979, and President of Mali from 1979 to 1991, when he was overthrown by popular protests and military coup...

 announced that the party would be formed and served as its Secretary-General

Secretary-General

-International intergovernmental organizations:-International nongovernmental organizations:-Sports governing bodies:...

.

UDPM was organized along democratic centralist

Democratic centralism

Democratic centralism is the name given to the principles of internal organization used by Leninist political parties, and the term is sometimes used as a synonym for any Leninist policy inside a political party...

 lines, but was not a Marxist

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

 formation. Traoré was the party general secretary. UDPM had a Central Executive Bureau with 19 members, a National Council with 137 members.

The main party organ was the daily newspaper L'Essor

L'Essor

L'Essor is the state-owned national daily newspaper published in Bamako, Mali. Its motto is "La Voix du Peuple" .-History:...

-La Voix du Peuple, which had a circulation of 40 000. It was the largest newspaper in the country as of the mid 1980s.