National Democratic Front (Asase Lewa)

National Democratic Front
Abbreviation	NLF
Leaders	Edudzi Agyeman, Adelaja Ifedapo
Founded	1949
Dissolved	1958
Merged into	Asalewan Section of the Workers' International
Paramilitary wing	People's Revolutionary Army
Ideology	Socialism Left-wing nationalism Anti-colonialism Pan-Bahianism
Political position	Left-wing to far-left
Participants	Asalewan Section of the Workers' International Labour Party National Progressive Party

The National Democratic Front was a united front in Asase Lewa during the late stages of the Revolution and early stages of the Bahian People's Republic that unified the organized political parties supportive of the Asalewan Revolution. Though the Asalewan Section of the Workers' International led the Asalewan Revolution and in practice dominated the Front throughout its existence, the front was theoretically an alliance of three equal political parties and was ideologically justified in Nemtsovist class terms as an alliance of various classes historically progressive in a colonial, semi-feudal context, namely the working-class, poor peasantry, and poor hunter-gatherers as represented by the Section, the labour aristocracy as represented by the Labour Party, and wealthy peasants and hunter-gatherers, and the anti-imperialist petite bourgeoisie as represented by the National Progressive Party. Though early Asase Lewa was nominally a multi-party socialist democracy, all political parties outside the Front were prohibited and agreement between members of the Front meant that elections were in practice uncontested.

Despite the Section's dominant role, the Front formalized a tripartite power-sharing agreement between the Section and two political forces that allied with the Section late in the Revolution and aided in its victory, namely Asase Lewa's non-Councilist trade unions, which in the Labour Party served as the primary electoral opposition to the conservative, pro-Estmerish rule of Arko Kwarteng until Kwarteng outlawed independent trade unions and the Labour Party in 1948, and tribal chiefs, which the Section cohered into the National Progressive Party, concentrated in the Highlands, and sympathetic to the Section on anti-colonialist and anti-enclosure grounds. Though the Section dominated public affairs in Asase Lewa following the Revolution's victory, these forces had some political power in the initial post-Revolutionary years, reserving a portion of political patronage and state jobs for their members, and influencing initial public policy; the Labour Party helped ensure a relatively privileged position for skilled industrial workers in the new state and the National Progressive Party considerably delayed social reform and agricultural collectivization in the Highlands, such that collectivization would occur last in this region.

By 1958, however, a strike wave by unskilled and semi-skilled workers, particularly in the city of Kbeme, and the progression of collectivization, and land reform and the socialist transformation more broadly, intensified conflict between the Section and the Front's junior parties and contributed to the Anti-Tribal Revolution, which included the forced merger of the Labour and National Progressive parties in the Section and creation of a single-party state. Some former Labour and National Progressive party members retained important positions in the Asalewan state in the immediate years after the Anti-Tribal Revolution, before virtually all remaining officials who were former Labour or National Progressive Party members were attacked and denounced by various rebel mass organizations, purged from office, and expelled from the Section during the Protective-Corrective Revolution.

Members

The National Democratic Front included the following parties:

Party	Asalewan name	Foundation	Dissolution	Ideology
Asalewan Section of the Workers' International	Dɔwɔlawo ƒe Dukɔwo Dome Habɔbɔ ƒe Asaselewatɔwo ƒe Akpa	10 July, 1912	Stil active	Nemtsovism-Tretyakism-Adelajism-Edudzism Councilism
Labour Party	Dɔwɔlawo ƒe Habɔbɔ	17 June, 1941	7 December, 1958	Labourism Left-wing nationalism
National Progressive Party	Dukɔa ƒe Ŋgɔyiyihabɔbɔ	21 February, 1947	7 December, 1958	Tribalism Anti-colonialism

Electoral history

Election	Votes	%	Seats	Position	Outcome
1953	5,135,165	100%	700 / 700	1st	Sole legal coalition