Monja Jaona

Who was Monja Jaona?

Monja Jaona was a Malagasy politician and early nationalist who significantly drove political events on the island during his lifetime. He was a member of Jiny, a militant nationalist group formed in southern Madagascar in the 1940s that sided with MDRM during the ultimately unsuccessful Malagasy Uprising of 1947 against French rule. The colonial government imprisoned him from 1946 to 1950 for his affiliation with Jiny. He formed the Madagascar for the Malagasy party in 1958 and successfully campaigned for the seat of mayor in Toliara, a position he held from 1959 to 1961. He came to view president Philibert Tsiranana and his Social Democratic Party supporters as unduly favorable to continued French interests on the island after independence in 1960. Jaona instigated the 1971-72 rotaka farmer and student protests that successfully forced Tsiranana's resignation.

By the late 1970s he had become disillusioned with Tsiranana's socialist successor, Didier Ratsiraka, and transferred his political loyalties to the opposition. He ran in the presidential election against Ratsiraka in 1982 and lost by a large margin, but claimed the results were falsified and demanded a recount.