MADAGASCAR’s presidency has announced that “an attempted illegal and forcible seizure of power” was in progress in the country.
President Andry Rajoelina made the announcement on Sunday in a statement, after administrative and technical officers joined thousands of protesters in the city centre on Saturday in a major shift in the Gen Z anti-government protest movement that began last month.
Rajoelina’s office said he denounced all efforts to destabilize the country and called for “dialogue to resolve the crisis.
According to Reuters, rival factions on Sunday both claimed control of the country’s security operations, with one group representing the CAPSAT soldiers announcing that it would oversee and coordinate all branches of the military from its base on the outskirts of Antananarivo.
The troops from the elite CAPSAT unit, the same force that aided Rajoelina’s rise to power in the 2009 coup, have called on fellow soldiers to defy orders and support the youth-led protests that began on September 25, marking the most serious challenge to Rajoelina’s rule since his 2023 reelection.
The unit had previously stated that it would “disobey any order to open fire” and condemned the gendarmerie for allegedly using excessive force against protesters, which has resulted in multiple deaths.
Reports revealed that soldiers from the unit engaged in clashes with gendarmes outside a barracks on Saturday before driving into the city in military vehicles to join the protesters, who greeted them with cheers and renewed calls for Rajoelina’s resignation.
Media reports showed dozens of soldiers leaving their barracks on Saturday to escort thousands of protesters into Antananarivo’s May 13 Square, a historic site of past political uprisings that had been heavily guarded and closed off during the recent unrest.
The gendarmerie, which has been handling the protests alongside the police in recent weeks and faces accusations from demonstrators of excessive force, stated that it would continue to act on its own orders “exclusively from the National Gendarmerie Command Center.”
The ICIR reported that the protests, inspired by Gen Z-led movements in Kenya and Nepal, initially erupted over water and electricity shortages but have since intensified, with demonstrators demanding President Rajoelina’s resignation, an apology for the violence against protesters, and the dissolution of both the Senate and the electoral commission.
Thousands of people gathered in Antananarivo on Sunday to protest against the government and honor a fallen CAPSAT soldier, whom the army unit claimed was killed by the gendarmerie on Saturday.
The peaceful demonstration drew church leaders, opposition figures including former President Marc Ravalomanana as well as members of the CAPSAT unit.
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.