Upon the independence from British rule on December 9, 1961, the sovereign state of Tanzania was created and was in need of a new political order. During the collapse of British colonial rule, the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) was a party that was led by Julius Nyerere and constituted mostly of a peasantry population. TANU was able to create a village-organized political structure which allowed localization in political representation. This allowed TANU to grow in party support from 100,000 to 1,000,000 million people within only five years