Military coup leader says he will be sworn in as Madagascar’s president

Madagascar’s military coup leader said that he is “taking the position of president” in an interview at his barracks.

Colonel Michael Randrianirina, who led a rebellion by soldiers that ousted President Andry Rajoelina, said he expects to be sworn in as the Indian Ocean country’s new leader in the next few days.

Col Randrianirina announced Tuesday that the armed forces were taking power in Madagascar, capping weeks of protests against Mr Rajoelina and his government by mainly youth groups.

He said he is taking the role as head of state after the country’s High Constitutional Court invited him to do so in the absence of Mr Rajoelina, who fled Madagascar following the uprising.

“There must be an oath-taking” to make his position official, Mr Randrianirina told The Associated Press.

The protests reached a turning point on Saturday when Col Randrianirina and soldiers from his elite Capsat military unit rebelled against Mr Rajoelina and joined demonstrations calling for the president to step down, forcing Mr Rajoelina to flee.

“We had to take responsibility yesterday because there is nothing left in the country, no president, no president in the senate, no government,” Col Randrianirina said.

Mr Rajoelina, who has been president since 2018, said he had fled to a safe place in fear for his life after the rebellion by Col Randrianirina’s soldiers.

He has rejected the military takeover as an illegal coup attempt by a rebel faction.

Col Randrianirina said the new military leadership would quickly appoint a new prime minister who would form a government, but did not give an exact time frame for that to happen.

“What I can say is that we are already accelerating it so that the crisis in the country does not last forever,” the colonel said.

Madagascans have seen their country face several coups and attempted coups since gaining independence from France in 1960.

The Indian Ocean island has also struggled with high levels of poverty ever since.

A 2009 military-led coup brought Mr Rajoelina to power as a transitional leader, when the president had cast himself as a champion of the youth.

There was no significant immediate reaction to the takeover by the international community or the African Union, which had called an emergency meeting for its security council on Tuesday.

Some analysts have described the weeks-long youth uprising in Madagascar as an expression of grievances over government failures and condemned the military takeover.

“Gen-Zers in Madagascar have been on the streets of the country protesting the lack of essential services, especially water and electricity, and the negative impact on their lives for almost a month,” said Olufemi Taiwo, professor of Africana studies at Cornell University.

“This is a civil society uprising and its resolution should not involve the military.”

He called for the African Union to condemn another coup that Africa “does not need,” adding that no country should recognise the new military leadership.

Later, the African Union announced that it had suspended Madagascar from its bodies with immediate effect “until constitutional order is restored in the country”.

The group previously suspended several other member states after military coups, including Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres, meanwhile, is “deeply concerned by the unconstitutional change of power in Madagascar” and hopes all stakeholders there can “work together to reach a peaceful settlement to the ongoing crisis and its root causes”, his spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, said in a statement, noting that the UN will continue to work to “restore peace and stability in the country”.