Madagascar’s opposition leader, Andry Rajoelina, is ratcheting up pressure to oust President Marc Ravalomanana, spurning a suggestion that support for the government be tested in a referendum.

The international television news channel, France 24, reported Monday that Rajoelina called on the country’s police and army to arrest Ravalomanana.

"I ask the army and police and all those who can to carry out the minister of justice's demand, because Andry Rajoelina is impatient to get into office," he was reported as telling his supporters. The opposition has named its own ministers as part of its effort to topple Ravalomanana.

Earlier Monday, Rajoelina dismissed an offer of a referendum made by Ravalomanana on Sunday. Agence France-Presse said Rajoelina told reporters in Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo: "We are not interested in this referendum."

AFP also reported security official Gilbain Pily as telling the agency that several members of the presidential guard had defected. But the army chief, Colonel Andre Andriarijaona, told AFP that the guard had not yet joined the rest of the country's security forces, which are reportedly threatening to intervene if the politicians cannot resolve the stand-off.

In Addis Ababa, the African Union held an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis, after the AU Commission’s president, Jean Ping, issued a statement at the weekend calling on all parties in Madagascar to negotiate an end to their power struggle “within the framework of legality and [the] relevant instruments of the AU.”

Unconstitutional transfers of power are breaches of AU protocols. Ravalomanana was re-elected president in 2006, with 54 percent of the vote, and his term does not end until 2011. However, Rajoelina has attracted the support of large numbers of people disillusioned with the government.