In the municipal elections of 1947 sweeping victories by Messali's followers alarmed the pied noir leaders. This could not be permitted on a national level. Consequently, when, in 1948, elections for the new Algerian Assembly took place as required by the 1947 statute, they turned out to be a masterpiece of rigging. There was widespread evidence of "stuffing" of election boxes by "loyal" caids or local officials; in some villages registration cards were never issued; in others heavily armed police (sometimes supported by tanks) assumed a menacing presence, and at Dechyma, where the populace refused to vote, the gardes mobiles opened fire, killing seven; nationalist election meetings were broken up and numerous arrests made. At Guelma and Sétif, the two centres of revolt in 1945, the results were simply never announced.

XREF: Connects to the broader pattern of colonial electoral manipulation and the Sétif 1945 revolt context.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 213