Madagascar president in hiding, refuses to resign

What happened

Madagascar President Andry Rajoelina said in a national broadcast Monday night that he had been “forced to find a safe place to protect my life” after an elite military unit joined anti-government protests, but he did not step down.

It is not known where Rajoelina recorded his announcement, streamed on Facebook after military intervention prevented its planned broadcast on national television, but Reuters reported that he fled the African island nation Sunday on a French military aircraft.

Who said what

Madagascar’s Gen Z–led protests started Sept. 25 over “chronic water and electricity outages but have snowballed into wider discontent with Rajoelina and his government,” corruption and the failure to improve quality of life in the impoverished nation of 31 million, The Associated Press said. This is the “most significant unrest” there since “Rajoelina himself first came to power” in a 2009 coup, backed by the same CAPSAT military unit that “rebelled against” him over the weekend in another “apparent coup.”

The unrest “mirrored recent protests against ruling elites elsewhere, including in Nepal, where the prime minister was forced to resign last month, and in Morocco,” Reuters said. But Madagascar’s military leaders “have been careful not to actively seize power, seemingly to avoid the appearance of a coup,” The New York Times said.

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What next?

It was “unclear what steps the breakaway security forces will take now,” said the Times. The country's Senate said it had ousted and replaced its chamber leader, a “focus of public anger during the protests,” Reuters said. “If the president’s office falls vacant, the leader of the Senate takes the post until elections are held.”