PROTESTERS in Madagascar returned to the streets on Tuesday, a day after President Andry Rajoelina dismissed his cabinet in an attempt to calm unrest that had already left 22 people dead.
According to the United Nations, earlier demonstrations were met with a heavy police crackdown, leaving at least 22 people dead and over 100 injured, even though the government dismissed the figures as unverified and “based on rumours or misinformation”.
The ICIR reported that the police in Madagascar declared a dusk-to-dawn curfew after violent protests by Gen Z on Friday, September 26, sparked by recurring power outages and water shortages.
In Antananarivo, hundreds of mostly young protesters took to the streets, but the demonstration was forcefully broken up as police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the crowd.
Drawing inspiration from “Gen Z” protests in Indonesia and Nepal, the youth-driven movement is challenging entrenched misgovernance, driven by frustration over persistent water and power outages in the impoverished Indian Ocean nation.
On Monday, September 29, Rajoelina dismissed his entire cabinet, issued an apology for his ministers’ inaction, and pledged to address the nation’s challenges.
But the move failed to halt the demonstrations, as organisers called for another rally in the capital Tuesday morning.
“They call us the TikTok generation, a generation of idiots, and when we rise up, they won’t even let us speak,” a student protester said Monday, dressed in black in line with a call on social media to mourn those killed.
“Mr Andry Rajoelina, when you led protests, you were allowed to, it was fine. But when we young people rise to fight for our country, you try to silence us,” she said.
A strong police deployment was stationed in and around the city centre on Tuesday.
On the outskirts, activity slowly picked up as schoolchildren filled the streets and people pulled carts, though traffic stayed sparse.
Protesters are calling for the resignation of Rajoelina, a former mayor of Antananarivo, who rose to power through a coup that removed former president Marc Ravalomanana.
“When the Malagasy people suffer, I want you to know that I feel that pain too, and I have not slept, day or night, in my efforts to find solutions and improve the situation,” Rajoelina said late Monday.
The 51-year-old leader, who skipped the 2013 election under international pressure, returned to power through the ballot in 2018.
Philibert Tsiranana, who governed during the post-independence era, was compelled to cede power to the Army in 1972 after a popular uprising was violently crushed.
The protests began in the capital, Antananarivo, on Thursday and later spread to other cities across the nation of nearly 32 million people, according to World Bank data.
Following last week’s protests in Antananarivo, widespread looting broke out overnight.
On Monday, he called for applications for a new prime minister within three days, ahead of forming a new government.
Madagascar, the world’s top producer of vanilla, the second most expensive spice after saffron, remains among the poorest nations globally.
In 2022, nearly 75 percent of its population lived below the poverty line, according to the World Bank.
Nanji is an investigative journalist with the ICIR. She has years of experience in reporting and broadcasting human angle stories, gender inequalities, minority stories, and human rights issues. She has documented sexual war crimes in armed conflict, sex for grades in Nigerian Universities, harmful traditional practices and human trafficking.