Madagascar stuck in political limbo

ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — Six months after the president of this impoverished island nation was forced to resign, Madagascar continues to struggle with political strife and economic uncertainty.

The world’s fourth largest island still has no internationally recognized government and is regularly rocked by protests orchestrated by supporters of former President Marc Ravalomanana and other opposition movements. Many international donors have suspended critical monetary aid as a result of the political stalemate and foreign visitors — scared off by travel warnings and televised images of chaos — have largely stopped coming.

Mamy Tiana Ramaherisoa, a taxi driver in Antananarivo, the country’s capital, said that he doesn’t get involved in politics but he complained that “the crisis” has caused a 70 percent drop in business for him and his vehicle rental company compared to last year. He said he will miss out on a lucrative opportunity as a family of six tourists just dropped their plan to hire him for a two-week trip around the country after watching violent clashes between rival political factions on television.

“I have no more work because of this political crisis,” he said.

Weeks of protests that started at the end of last year culminated in March when Ravalomanana, who had been Madagascar’s president since 2002, was left with no options but to hand his resignation to the military after scores of protesters were killed in front of the presidential palace. An army council then transmitted power to Andry Rajoelina, the youthful Antananarivo mayor who had spearheaded the protests. Rajoelina, 35 but looking much younger, took advantage of the mounting anger of the population toward Ravalomanana. The businessman-turned-president, himself a former mayor of the capital, was credited with vastly improving the country’s infrastructure and for overseeing a period of economic growth but he was also accused of steering much of that growth toward his own enterprises and drastically expanding his own executive power.

Madagascar’s history is littered with undemocratic takeovers. Since Madagascar gained independence from France in 1960, the country has experienced one assassination, one impeachment and numerous coup attempts — some of them successful. Even Ravalomanana’s first election victory was fiercely contested by his opponent, and he was not recognized internationally as Madagascar’s leader until a year after the election.

“The solution is to have a national debate to find the real problem at the source of all these cyclical movements,” said Pierre Houlder, a Rajoelina adviser, in an interview.

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