Madagascar: Tsiranana government (1960-1972)

Updated November 2005

The First Republic of Madagascar was founded amidst division between the relatively educated and economically privileged Protestant Merina's of the highlands, who accounted for about 26% of the total population, and the bulk of the population of various ethnicities concentrated on the coast (côtiers), some of whom had converted to Catholicism. The Merina had favoured total severance of colonial ties with France and had expressed that vision through the Congress Party for the Independence of Madagascar (AKFM) (Marcus 2004, Library of Congress 1994c, Mulford 1993).

It was the peoples of the coast, with their numeric strength, who brought the Democratic Social Party of Madagascar (PSD) to power. The PSD, under the leadership of Philibert Tsiranana, had led Madagascar to formal independence in 1960, while strengthening ties with France through a series of bilateral agreements and conventions on security, economic and cultural matters that tied Madagascar firmly to the French Community (Marcus 2004, Library of Congress 1994c, Mulford 1993).

The parties were divided over other issues as well. The AKFM favoured a federal system while the PSD implemented a unitary system with a strong presidency. The AKFM desired that the country should follow a socialist developmental strategy, while the PSD used its political power to advance the business interests of the peoples of the coast, while gradually absorbing socialist elements from the AKFM's position (Marcus 2004, Mulford 1993). Despite these differences, and a belief amongst the Merina that they were marginalised in the economic life of the country, a spirit of reconciliation prevailed (Library of Congress 1994c, Bertelsmann Foundation 2005).

The economic policy of the government while ostensibly favouring a free-market climate was marked by contradictory elements which resulted in the development of non-competitive oligopolistic and monopolistic market forms. This is turn led to increasing inflexibility in the economy and to economic stagnation and rises in social inequality as the favoured few became wealthier while the majority remained mired in poverty (Marcus 2004, Bertelsmann Foundation 2005).

By the end of the 1960's, as a result of the economic difficulties the country was experiencing, popular support for the ever more authoritarian Tsiranana declined, although the he continued to win elections in 1967 and 1972. The AKFM, marginalised by the winner-takes-all system, were unable to exploit the weaknesses of the government because of its narrow ethnic and class base in part, and in part because it was riven by ideological differences and divided into factions (Columbia Encyclopedia 2005, Library of Congress 1994c).

Dissatisfaction with the government first boiled over in a peasant revolt among the peoples of the coast in Toliara province, in the southwest, in April 1971. Led by Monja Jaona, who had participated in the revolt against the French in 1947 and who had founded the National Movement for the Independence of Madagascar (MONIMA), the revolt turned on intensified efforts at taxation by the government a time when the peasants of Toliara were experiencing economic hardship due to livestock disease. Between fifty and 1 000 people died in the suppression of the rebellion, MONIMA was outlawed and the leadership of the revolt deported to Nosy Lava off the southwest coast (Library of Congress 1994c).

Renewed unrest broke out in May 1972, just two months after Tsiranana had won the 1972 election, this time in the form of a strike by about 100 000 secondary school students, who protested against the cultural dominance of French curricula and educators in the Madagascan education system and against lack of access for the poor to secondary education. The government arrested students' leaders and deported them to Nosy Lava, banned demonstrations and suspended school activities. A state of emergency was declared, parliament was dissolved and an illegal demonstration on May 13, 1972 was met with live fire; 150 people were wounded and 40 people killed. The strikes and protests did not abate, but rather spread to public servants, peasants and the urban unemployed youth and outside the capital to the other provinces (Library of Congress 1994c, Marcus 2004, US State Department 2005).

References

COLUMBIA ENCYCLOPEDIA 2005 "Madagascar", Sixth edition, [www] http://www.bartleby.com/65/ma/Madagasc.html [opens new window] (accessed 23 Oct 2007).

BERTELSMANN FOUNDATION AND THE CENTER FOR APPLIED POLICY RESEARCH 2005 "Madagascar", IN Shaping Change - Strategies of Development and Transformation, [www] http://www.bertelsmann-transformation-index.de/79.0.html?L=1 [opens new window] (accessed 23 Oct 2007).

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 1994c "Independence, the First Republic, and the Military Transition, 1960-75" IN Country Study: Madagascar, [www] http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+mg0015) [opens new window] (accessed 23 Oct 2007).

MARCUS, RR 2004 "Political Change in Madagascar: Populist Democracy or Neopatrimonialism by another name?", Institute of Security Studies, Occasional Paper 89, [www] http://www.iss.co.za/pubs/papers/89/Paper89.htm [opens new window] (accessed 23 Oct 2007).

MULFORD, MR 1992 "Madagascar: A Tradition of Continuity", [www] http://www.frontiernet.net/~mmulford/madag.htm [opens new window] (accessed 23 Oct 2007).

US STATE DEPARTMENT 2005 "Background Note: Madagascar", [www] http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5460.htm [opens new window] (accessed 23 Oct 2007).