Background
He was born on July 1930, at Ambohidratrimo, a Merina from the central highlands.
He was born on July 1930, at Ambohidratrimo, a Merina from the central highlands.
Educated first at Tananarive, then sent to France, taking an arts degree at Paris and a theology degree at Strasbourg.
On his return to Madagascar in 1957 he became pastor of Ambohitantely near the former royal palace. As one of the founders of AKFM with a strong socialist appeal, he was elected mayor of Tananarive in October 1959. At the post-independence elections in September 1960 he was elected to the National Assembly for Tananarive.
During the next 12 years he had an uphill struggle against the government on a national basis and in the capital where he was at loggerheads with the government-appointed Prefect of Tananarive. Town development and the modernisation of essential services such as garbage collection and street cleaning suffered. After the May 1972 military take-over the AKFM lost much ground because Andriamanjato vigorously opposed the change.
Always elegantly dressed in smart European clothes he is a more familiar figure at peace conferences in Communist countries than in the bush in Madagascar. Politically his attitudes are those of the French intellectual left of the 1950s. During Tsiranana’s government he was in close contact with the President and was thought likely to have taken a place in the cabinet if it had been offered.