Seychelles: Independence and One Party Rule

Extracted from: "Seychelles" IN Compendium of Elections in Southern Africa (2002), edited by Tom Lodge, Denis Kadima and David Pottie, EISA, 278-279.

After independence, Seychelles was ruled for less than a year by James Mancham as president. France Albert René, the prime minister, meanwhile inculcated a fiercely nationalist ethos in his SPUP, preparing the soil for the armed coup of 5 June 1977, which toppled Mancham and sent him into exile. The coup was actively supported by Julius Nyerere, the Tanzanian President, who, like René himself, resented Mancham's close ties to Western capitalist interests and the free-wheeling free-enterprise economy he had installed in Seychelles.

As the new President, René pressed ahead with quite radical socialist programmes, including state control over all sectors of the economy, strict supervision of the media, and increasingly rigorous control of peoples' lives. The country became a one-party state ruled by the SPUP, renamed the Seychelles People's Progressive Front (SPPF) in December 1991. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, several coup attempts were made, inducing the René government to become ever more autocratic. In May 1978, the SPPF was declared the only legal party.

The independence constitution had been abrogated immediately after the 1977 coup. René then ruled by presidential proclamation and ordinance for two years while a six-person Constitutional Commission drafted a constitution that formalised René's dictatorial powers and left his subjects with effectively no legal protection against his will and whims.

The spirit of the constitution is captured in the Commission's statement that, to avoid factional conflict and "in light of the realities of the political situation of the Seychelles today, it will be in the general welfare of the society that the limitation of [fundamental rights] be accepted." A long list of human rights is described simply as "the intention of the People of Seychelles," with no provision made to guarantee them. Members of the Legislature, the so-called People's Assembly, were to be selected by the SPPF, to which they had to belong. The constitution came into effect on 5 June 1979.

In terms of the constitution, presidential elections had to be held every five years.