Democratic Evolution Movement of Central Africa (in French: Mouvement d'Evolution Démocratique de l'Afrique Centrale) was a political party in the Central African Republic led by Abel Goumba. MEDAC was founded in 1960 by Goumba and Pierre Maleombho, the former president of the National Assembly who was ousted by Dacko, after they left the MESAN party.
In the elections the same year MEDAC won around 20% of the votes, and 11 out of 50 seats.
In the end of the year MEDAC mobilized protests against the increasingly authoritarian rule of David Dacko. Goumba became more and more critical of the French backing of Dacko. At a parliamentary session, MEDAC MPs staged a walk-out following accusations by Dacko that MEDAC was supporting tribalism. On December 23 MEDAC was dissolved by the government. Goumba's parliamentary immunity was repealed, and together with seven other MEDAC leaders he was arrested.
Famous quotes containing the words democratic, evolution, movement, central and/or africa:
“Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“The more specific idea of evolution now reached is—a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of motion and integration of matter.”
—Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)
“I’m real ambivalent about [working mothers]. Those of use who have been in the women’s movement for a long time know that we’ve talked a good game of “go out and fulfill your dreams” and “be everything you were meant to be.” But by the same token, we want daughters-in-law who are going to stay home and raise our grandchildren.”
—Erma Bombeck (20th century)
“There is no such thing as a free lunch.”
—Anonymous.
An axiom from economics popular in the 1960s, the words have no known source, though have been dated to the 1840s, when they were used in saloons where snacks were offered to customers. Ascribed to an Italian immigrant outside Grand Central Station, New York, in Alistair Cooke’s America (epilogue, 1973)
“Are you there, Africa with the bulging chest and oblong thigh? Sulking Africa, wrought of iron, in the fire, Africa of the millions of royal slaves, deported Africa, drifting continent, are you there? Slowly you vanish, you withdraw into the past, into the tales of castaways, colonial museums, the works of scholars.”
—Jean Genet (1910–1986)