Southern nationalist who joined the revolutionary front, then walked out over fraudulent elections
Denouncing the rigged vote, he declared "the Malagasy people had not elected Ratsiraka for the next seven years."
A Malagasy nationalist politician from the Antandroy people of the south. After organizing the secret Jiny society and surviving imprisonment for his role in the 1947 uprising, he founded MONIMA in 1958 to champion Madagascar's poor southern peasants against Tsiranana's pro-French regime, leading the 1971-72 rotaka protests that drove him from power. Joining Ratsiraka's revolutionary front, he later denounced the 1977 elections as fraudulent and withdrew, becoming the Second Republic's foremost opposition leader.
Career Timeline
- 1943organized the secret society Jiny
- 1946–1950imprisoned by the colonial administration for Jiny affiliation
- 1958founded MONIMA (Madagascar for the Malagasy)
- 1959–1961mayor of Toliara
- 1971–1972led the rotaka protests that drove President Tsiranana from power
- 1976–1977joined the FNDR (December 1976), then denounced the 1977 elections as fraudulent and withdrew in June
- 1982ran against Ratsiraka, denounced fraud, placed under house arrest
- 1989–1992leading figure in the protests that forced Ratsiraka's resignation and multiparty elections