Rotaka

The rotaka was a series of farmer and student protests in Madagascar between April 1971 and May 1972 that led to the collapse of the First Republic of Madagascar under President Philibert Tsiranana.

Madagascar regained independence from France in 1960. The nation's first president, Philibert Tsiranana, was not selected in an open election, but rather was nominated by the senate, in which Tsiranana's heavily pro-French Socialist Democratic Party (PSD) dominated. The PSD was an outgrowth of PADESM, a pro-French, pro-cotiers (coastal peoples') party formed in reaction to the establishment of MDRM in 1946 by Merina elites, who many cotiers feared would attempt to re-establish the Merina hegemony that existed under the pre-colonial Kingdom of Imerina. Under Tsiranana's leadership, French influence remained ever present. In 1969, foreigners controlled 95% of the modern industrial sector and produced a quarter of all exported agricultural products, despite making up a tiny fraction of the population. The sale of manufactured goods was largely controlled by the South Asian population, while import-export companies were French-owned. Although Madagascar enjoyed a period of economic prosperity for much of the First Republic, the late 1960s saw a recession and deterioration in quality of life in Madagascar, largely prompted by global economic conditions but to which the Tsiranana response had been ineffectual and muted.

Popular disapproval of the Tsiranana administration began to grow. Among his loudest critics was Monja Jaona, a Tandroy politician of the MONIMA party who had served two years as mayor of Toliara (1959-1961) before being chased from office by power politics. Jaona had since developed an image as an opposition figure and champion of the common man against the increasingly unpopular policies of the PSD, including the neo-colonial economic and cultural relationship with France perpetuated by PSD political elites.

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