Army says it has seized power in Madagascar; president refuses to relinquish office

Madagascar witnessed a sharp political escalation after Colonel Michael Randrianerina announced the army had taken power following President Andry Rajoelina’s flight from the country.

Randrianerina told national radio that the military had dissolved all state institutions except the National Assembly, which had voted to remove the president.

Randrianerina led a mutiny of soldiers who joined anti-government protesters from “Generation Z”.
For his part, Madagascar’s president, Andry Rajoelina, said on Tuesday that he had dissolved the National Assembly, an escalatory move that heightens the confrontation with young protesters and the army that forced him to flee the country.

A decree posted on Facebook said the president had consulted the leaders of the National Assembly and the Senate, but it was not immediately clear whether the step had any legal force.

In a televised address to the nation from an undisclosed location on Monday evening, Rajoelina refused to resign despite mounting pressure from weeks of protests by young people born in the 1990s and early 2000s — “Generation Z” — demanding his resignation, alongside widespread defections within the army.