Leader of Madagascar’s military coup tells AP he is ‘taking the position of president’

ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar (AP) – The leader of Madagascar’s military coup told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he is “taking the position of president” and that the armed forces would be in charge of the African island nation for up to two years before any elections are held.

Col. Michael Randrianirina, who led the rebellion that ousted President Andry Rajoelina on Tuesday following weeks of youth-led protests, said in his first interview with a global news outlet since taking power that he expects to be sworn in as the country’s new leader in the next few days.

“There must be an oath-taking” to make his position official, Randrianirina said at his unit’s barracks while flanked by fellow officers. “We are staying here for at least 18 months, at most two years.”

Randrianirina announced Tuesday that the armed forces were taking power in Madagascar, a sprawling country of about 30 million people off of Africa’s east coast that is the world’s leading vanilla producer and is known for its unique biodiversity. Since gaining independence from France in 1960, it also has a history of coups and political crises.

The latest military takeover capped weeks of protests against Rajoelina and his government led by youth groups calling themselves “Gen Z Madagascar.” The protesters, who also included labor unions and civic groups, have demanded better government and job opportunities, echoing youth-led protests elsewhere in the world. Among other things, the Madagascar protesters have railed against chronic water and electricity outages, limited access to higher education, government corruption and poverty, which affects roughly three out of every four Madagascans, according to the World Bank.

Although some suggest the military seized power on the backs of the civilian protesters, demonstrators cheered Randrianirina and other soldiers from his elite CAPSAT unit as they triumphantly rode through the streets of the capital, Antananarivo, on Tuesday, with one protest leader telling the AP “the military is listening to us.”

The takeover was “an awakening of the people. It was launched by the youth. And the military supported us,” said the protest leader, Safika, who only gave one name as has been typical with the demonstrators. “We must always be wary, but the current state of affairs gives us reason to be confident.”

The protests reached a turning point Saturday when Randrianirina and soldiers from his unit sided with the demonstrators calling for the president to resign. Rajoelina said he fled to an undisclosed country because he feared for his life.

Randrianirina explained that he is taking over as Madagascar’s head of state because the country’s High Constitutional Court invited him to do so in the absence of Rajoelina. He previously said the military had acted on behalf of the people and cast the coup as a move to “restore” the country.

“We had to take responsibility yesterday because there is nothing left in the country, no president, no president in the senate, no government,” Randrianirina said. The colonel said the military leadership was “accelerating” the appointment of a new prime minister “so that the crisis in the country does not last forever.” He didn’t give an exact time frame for that to happen.

Rajoelina, who first came to power as a transitional leader in a 2009 military coup, was elected president in 2018 and reelected in 2023. He fired his government last month in an attempt to appease the protesters after a crackdown by security forces left 22 people dead and more than 100 injured, according to the United Nations. Rajoelina’s government disputed those figures.

The exiled Rajoelina, 51, has rejected the military takeover’s legitimacy.

But Randrianirina pushed back on that, telling the AP: “What is he saying is illegal? We have an order from the High Constitutional Court. We did not force the HCC or point a gun at it to issue this.”

Randrianirina’s claim that his authority to take over as president came from the country’s highest court seemed to contradict his announcement Tuesday that the military council that was taking power had suspended that court’s powers.

In a statement, Rajoelina’s office claimed that some of the high court’s judges had been threatened so they would sign off on the colonel’s ascendency.

There was no significant immediate reaction to the takeover by other countries or the African Union, which had called an emergency meeting of its security council.

Some analysts have described Madagascar’s youth movement as an expression of understandable 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 recognize the new military leadership.

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Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa. Associated Press reporter Sarah Tetaud contributed to this report.