Philibert Tsiranana

Philibert Tsiranana (18 October 1912 – 16 April 1978) was a Malagasy politician and leader who served as the seventh Prime Minister of Madagascar from 1958 to 1959, and then later the first President of Madagascar from 1959 to 1972.

During the twelve years of his administration, the Republic of Madagascar experienced institutional stability that stood in contrast to the political turmoil many mainland African countries experienced in this period.

This stability contributed to Tsiranana's popularity and his reputation as a remarkable statesman.

Madagascar experienced moderate economic growth under his social democratic policies and came to be known as "the Happy Island."

However, the electoral process was fraught with issues and his term ultimately terminated in a series of farmer and student protests that brought about the end of the First Republic and the establishment of the officially socialist Second Republic.

The "benevolent schoolmaster" public image that Tsiranana cultivated went alongside a firmness of convictions and actions that some believe tended toward authoritarianism.

Nonetheless, he remains an esteemed Malagasy political figure remembered throughout the country as its "Father of Independence".

According to his official biography, Tsiranana was born on 18 October 1912 in Ambarikorano, Sofia Region, in northeastern Madagascar.

Born to Madiomanana and Fisadoha Tsiranana, Catholic cattle ranchers from the Tsimihety ethnic group, Philibert was destined to become a cattle rancher himself.

However, following the death of his father in 1923, Tsiranana's brother, Zamanisambo, suggested that he attend a primary school in Anjiamangirana.

A brilliant student, Tsiranana was admitted into the Analalava regional school in 1926, where he graduated with a brevet des collèges.

In 1930, he enrolled in the Le Myre de Vilers normal school in Tananarive, named after former resident-general of Madagascar Charles Le Myre de Vilers, where he entered the "Section Normale" program, preparing him for a career teaching in primary schools.

After completing his studies, he started a teaching career in his hometown.

In 1942, he began receiving instruction in Tananarive for middle school teaching and in 1945, he succeeded in the teacher assistant competitive examinations, allowing him to serve as a professor in a regional school.

In 1943, Philibert Tsiranana joined the professional teachers' union and in 1944 entered the General Confederation of Labor (CGT).

With the end of World War II and the creation of the French Union by the Fourth Republic, the colonial society of Madagascar experienced a liberalization.

The colonized peoples now had the right to be politically organized.

The PADESM came about as a result of the holding of the French constituent elections of 1945 and 1946.

For the first time, the people of Madagascar were allowed to participate in French elections, with electing settlers and indigenous people to the French National Assembly.

To ensure that they won one of the two seats allotted to native people of Madagascar, the inhabitants of the coastal region made an agreement with the Mouvement démocratique de la rénovation malgache (MDRM) which was controlled by the Merina of the uplands.

The coastal people agreed to seek the election of Paul Ralaivoavy in the west, while leaving the east to the Merina candidate, Joseph Ravoahangy.

This agreement was not honoured and the Merina won the second seat in October 1945 and June 1946.

In 1946, he obtained a scholarship to the École normale d'instituteurs in Montpellier, France, where he worked as a teacher assistant.

He left Madagascar on 6 November.

Tsiranana joined the Group of Student Communists (GEC) of Madagascar in January 1946, on the advice of his mentor Paul Ralaivoavy.

He assumed the role of treasurer.

The GEC enabled him to meet future leaders of the PADESM (Party of the Disinherited of Madagascar), which he became a founding member of in June 1946.

The PADESM was a political organization composed mainly of and from the coastal region.

"If [the achievement independence] had occurred in 1946, there would have been a civil war at once because the coastal people would not have accepted it. Given the intellectual level of the period, they would have remained petty village chiefs, subordinated, subjugated, not to say slaves, since the gap between the people of the coast and the people of the uplands was enormous."

In July 1946, Tsiranana refused the post of secretary general of PADESM on account of his impending departure for the École normale de Montpellier.

Tsiranana had become known for his contributions to PADESM's journal Voromahery, authored under the pseudonym "Tsimihety" (derived from his birthplace).

As a result of his journey to France, Tsiranana escaped the Malagasy Uprising of 1947 and its bloody suppression.

Moved by the events, Tsiranana participated in an anti-colonial protest in Montpellier on 21 February 1949, although not a supporter of independence.

During his time in France, Tsiranana became conscious of the bias towards the Malagasy elite in education.

He found that only 17 of the 198 Malagasy students in France were coastal people.

In his view, there could never be a free union between all Malagasy while a cultural gap remained between the coastal people and the people of the highlands.

To remedy this gap, he established two organisations in Madagascar: the Association of Coastal Malagasy Students (AEMC) in August 1949, and then the Cultural Association of Coastal Malagasy Intellectuals (ACIMCO) in September 1951.

These organisations were resented by the Merina and were held against him.

On his return to Madagascar in 1950, Tsiranana was appointed professor of technical education at the École industrielle in Tananarive in the highlands.

Concerned about the possible return of "Merina control," the coastal people founded PADESM in order to counter the nationalist goals of the MDRM and oppose Malagasy independence - a position justified by Tsiranana in 1968: