17 February 2009
(Page 2 of 2)
"It is unclear whether Rajoelina has international support - foreign powers seem to support the current president, who, after all, was duly elected and who also seems unlikely to be toppled in the short term."
RM: "At the end of January [Rajoelina] was making significant inroads. It looked like he might be able to use the existing soft opposition to build a national base. Indeed, it looked like he was trying to follow many of the plays in Ravalomanana's playbook from 2001.
"Strategically, that has meant that Ravalomanana has had to act quickly. He couldn't arrest Rajoelina, because it would make him a martyr and prove him right [that Ravalomanana was autocratic] but he did push him out of office [Rajoelina was sacked as mayor on 3 February]. Rajoelina, for his part, overplayed his hand.
"The turning point came when he declared himself 'in charge' after weeks of saying he didn't want to run the country, but rather stand up for the people to bring about changes in the Ravalomanana government, or else a transitional government led by someone else. His support in the streets dropped by three-fourths overnight. The viability of building a national base was undermined.
"Important here is that despite diminishing options for Rajoelina, he has tapped into a vast and growing malaise. Even Ravalomanana's supporters see him as a centrifugal force. [Ravalomanana] has been a reformer, but governance transparency has waned, political liberties have diminished, and he has conflated the private and public sector in innovative ways that are neither beneficial to Madagascar nor perceived as beneficial to Madagascar.
"The EU and the World Bank suspended budgetary support to Ravalomanana in December because of such governance concerns. This is very significant, because much of Ravalomanana's strength over the past few years has come from unflagging international support. Rajoelina has very broad support for his criticism of the government - he just can't activate an alternative. He has, however, paved the way for someone to do that.
In short, Rajoelina is fast running out of options, but he has forced Ravalomanana into a corner. Either Ravalomanana is going to have to begin changing his approach to governance [to be both more inclusive and more transparent] or he is going to have to centralize more to the point of significant democratic backsliding."
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]
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1- First of all, the 1991 conflict was between Amiral Didier RATSIRAKA and Pr. Albert ZAFY, not of Mr. Marc RAVALOMANANA as the article says. Precisely, it is unacceptable that in most African countries, power is often taken through the street, but Mr. Ravalomanana Marc was democratically elected. In the Northern countries, people can express their anger and frustration toward the government or certain policies but that has never led to a coup d’Etat or to destitute the President from his seat before he can finish his term. Beside the death of certain people, the saddest thing in this whole situation is this gruesome willingness to slow down, or even to destroy the economy of Madagascar just when it starts to grow. In fact, the efforts of the actual government to boost the economy of this country has already had some concrete results because, the economic growth of this country between 2003 and 2006 is 6%. The governmental efforts to improve the social life of the population has also had tremendous impacts as infants death rates have been reduced significantly. It is, however, true that there still are challenges and difficulties to overcome so that the most vulnerable population will enjoy the impact of the economic growth. This requires everybody to work together to support the best practices and strategic reorientations where in this context of globalization, the responsibilities of the government, of the citizens, and of the unions are linked. 2- About the term limit for the President, we, in Madagascar, have already learned our lesson from the reign in power of Amiral Didier RATSIRAKA which was too long (almost a quarter of century where only the few people that surrounds him enjoyed the benefits). Our Constitution now mandates that a candidate, who is elected President, can only be elected for two other terms.
Active Discussions: Madagascar: Mayor Runs Out of Options But Forces President Into Corner