 In the pre-elections of 1957, SLIM won no seats which disappointed Blyden and his supporters within and without the country.Blyden and Mbriwa went on to form an alliance, merging their parties to form the Sierra Leone Progressive Independence Movement (SLPIM) 

At the eve of independence, a "West Africa" Correspondent's Report summed up Blyden and SLIM's impact on pre-independence politics as follows