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Madagascar

Rajaonarimampianina, Rajoelina ally, wins Malagasy presidency

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Rajaonarimampianina

For a country that marked the interim between the first and second rounds of its presidential election with an outbreak of bubonic plague, it would seem that Madagascar’s new president-elect Hery Rajaonarimampianina has his work cut out for him in a country that’s had too many false starts at both political stability and economic growth. madagascar-flag

According to Madagascar’s election commission, Rajaonarimampianina won the country’s December 20 runoff with 53.5% of the vote to 46.5% for runner-up Jean Louis Robinson, though Robinson and his allies have alleged that the vote was riddled with fraud since December 21.  Election results had been previously expected on January 7.

Rajaonarimampianina, a former finance minister, was the candidate backed by outgoing president Andry Rajoelina, a former mayor of the capital city of Antananarivo, who came to power in March 2009 in a coup that followed protests over economic conditions.  Robinson, a doctor and a former health minister, was backed by  Marc Ravalomanana, president from 2002 until his ouster by Rajoelina in 2009.  Though Rajoelina promised prompt elections when he took power, repeated delays meant that it took four years to implement a new constitution.  Those delays cost Madagascar, an impoverished country of over 22 million, much-needed  developmental aid that will hopefully now be freed to pull the troubled Malagasy economy out of its doldrums.  The World Bank estimates that the political crisis of the past four years caused an economic hit of around $10 billion — not a small amount considering that the country’s GDP in 2012 was just $9.975 billion. Continue reading Rajaonarimampianina, Rajoelina ally, wins Malagasy presidency →

Madagascar

Madagascar holds long-awaited election, prepares for December runoff

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Though the main actors in Malagasy politics have all been barred from running in Madagascar’s presidential election, they still found a way to overshadow the actual candidates in the country’s October 25 election.madagascar-flag

Results are still trickling in four days after the vote, but with just over 25% of all votes counted, it seems almost certain that the race will head to a December 20 runoff between the top two candidates.

That the vote actually went forward four years after a political coup marks significant progress for Madagascar, which has been trapped in a political and economic crisis since 2009.  With a new constitution in place, however, the new president will hopefully close the door on the turmoil that began with the March 2009 coup that brought opposition leader Andry Rajoelina, then the mayor of Madagascar’s capital of Antananarivo, to power.  Rajoelina replaced Marc Ravalomanana, first elected president in 2002 and reelected overwhelmingly in 2006, following widespread riots over economic conditions, sparking concern from throughout the world, including donor countries like France and the United States.

The country has been essentially transitioning toward last weekend’s presidential election ever since.  Finally scheduled for July 24, the election was postponed to August 23 and, again, to October after repeated delays and clashes among Madagascar’s constitutional court, the electoral commission and the Rajoelina administration.

Last year, the European Union and the African Union brokered a deal whereby both Rajoelina and Ravalomanana agreed not to recontest the presidency, which appeared to clear the way for 2013 elections.  But when former first lady Lalao Ravalomanana declared her own candidacy, Rajoelina declared his candidacy as well, arguing that Ravalomanana’s wife was a sly stand-in for the former president.  For good measure, former president Didier Ratsiraka, who brings an additional set of baggage to Malagasy politics, threw his hat in the ring as well.

Over the summer, however, Madagascar’s electoral court banned all three candidates — Rajoelina, Ravalomanana and Ratsiraka — thereby clearing the way for an entirely new administration relatively untainted by the personal failures of the three men who have governed Madagascar for all but five of the past 38 years.

Among the 33 candidates in the first round, two candidates seem poised to face off in the runoff, and unsurprisingly, they are the two candidates who are supported by both Rajoelina and Ravalomanana.

The first is Jean Louis Robinson (pictured above with Lalao Ravalomanana), a physician who previously served as Ravalomanana’s health minister, who leads with 26.32% of the current vote total.  He has benefitted from the full support of both Ravalomanana and his spouse during the campaign, and his campaign platform involves returning to an updated Madagascar Action Plan (MAP) that Ravalomanana tried to implement in the mid-2000s.

The second is Hery Rajaonarimampianina, Rajoelina’s finance minister between 2009 and 2013, who is in second place with 15.16%.  Though Rajoelina, as sitting president, remains neutral in the race, it’s clear that he is supporting Rajaonarimampianina.  Rajaonarimampianina received a masters’ degree in finance and accounting in Québec in the 1980s, served as director of the National Business Institute in the early 1990s, and worked in the private sector in the 2000s as an auditor and accountant.

Both candidates have promised to take action to boost employment and reduce poverty.   Madagascar, a former French colony with a population of around 22 million, suffers from low growth after years of a relatively planned, socialist economy that flatlined after the 2009 coup, despite Rajoelina’s pledge four years ago to restore democracy.  While the eventual winner of Madagascar’s presidency can look forward to a boost from the resumption of international aid from the European Union and the United States, he will face the need to implement serious and fundamental structural reforms if the Malagasy economy is to become truly competitive globally.

No other candidate is currently polling more than 10% of the vote, but the next five candidates include a who’s who of Malagasy political figures, including other politicians who have held roles in Rajoelina’s government over the past four years:

Continue reading Madagascar holds long-awaited election, prepares for December runoff →

Madagascar

Disqualifications of current, former presidents give Madagascar chance for fresh start (eventually)

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andry

In the latest twist of Madagascar’s long-running electoral saga, the African island country’s electoral court earlier this week decided to disqualify the three leading candidates in the election, which had been scheduled for August 23.madagascar-flag

That means neither current president Andry Rajoelina nor former first lady Lalao Ravalomanana (a stand-in for exiled former president Lalao Ravalomanana) nor former president Didier Ratsiraka will be in the running for the first presidential vote in seven years.

In a sense, it may have been a better solution to let all of the candidates run — why not let them have at it in a free-for-all to determine who should lead Madagascar?  In a free and fair election, the winner would have that much more of a mandate for his (or her) government.  This way, all three can now credibly claim that, but for the judicial intervention, he (or she) would have been elected, which will inevitably weaken the person who is ultimately chosen in the election.

But in a world where the election court is going to start disqualifying candidates, it’s better that all three heavyweights are excluded rather than just one or two.  Moreover, the European Union, the African Union and the Southern African Development Community had all pushed for their disqualification, and EU high representative for foreign policy Catherine Ashton had set a sharp deadline for Madagascan elections to be held by the end of the year in order to avoid further sanctions.

The immediate roots of Madagascar’s current political crisis lie in the early days of 2009, when Rajoelina, then the major of Antananarivo, Madagascar’s capital and largest city, led sustained protests against Ravalomanana’s government.  When a pro-Rajoelina crowd marched on the presidential palace, Ravalomanana ordered his guard to fire on the crowd, killing 30 protesters and leading to a military coup that essentially deposed Ravalomanana in March 2009 and installed Rajoelina in his place — illegitimately, in the eyes of the rest of the world.  Rajoelina, only 34 years old at the time, was supposed to serve as president of a semi-transitional government — the ‘High Transitional Authority of Madagascar’ — that was supposed to pass a new constitution and hold new presidential elections as soon as 2010.

But Rajoelina has now served almost as long as he would have if elected to a full term as president — four years.  Although the country passed a new constitution into effect in November 2010 with the support of the international community, Madagascar’s presidential election was postponed six times from an initial date in May 2011 until the August 2013 date, which now too looks like it will be postponed.  Much of the problem has had to do with who’s running — Rajoelina and Marc Ravalomanana, who remains in exile in South Africa, had struck an agreement in January that neither would stand in the election.  But when Lalao Ravalomanana decided to enter the race in lieu of her husband in May, Rajoelina argued that Ravalomanana broke their agreement and accordingly, Rajoelina declared his own candidacy.   Continue reading Disqualifications of current, former presidents give Madagascar chance for fresh start (eventually) →

African Union, Cameroon, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Rwanda, Swaziland, Togo, Zimbabwe

Eight sub-Saharan African elections within nine weeks highlights region’s fragile democracy

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mugabe

In the next three months, eight sub-Saharan African countries will go to the polls to elect a new president and/or parliament, a relative blitz that will not only highlight the region’s growing, if fragile, democratic institutions, but will call attention to many unique issues facing sub-Saharan Africa: unequal and unsteady growth rates, the role of Islamic jihad and security, improving health outcomes, the rule of law and governance standards, and further development of vital infrastructure.african union

Between July 21 and September 30, voters in countries with an aggregate population of around 100 million are scheduled to cast ballots, though of course not all elections are created equal — or conducted on incredibly equal ground.  In some countries, such as Guinea and Togo, it will be a success if the elections actually take place as planned; in other countries, such as Swaziland and Cameroon, elections will be essentially a sideshow of powerlessness.  In  Zimbabwe, where longtime president Robert Mugabe (pictured above) is seeking yet another term after 33 years in power, and in Madagascar, where voters will choose a new president and legislature after a problematic 2009 coup and a four-year interim government, the vote could herald once-in-a-generation leadership transitions.

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Here’s the rundown, in brief:

Togo: July 25togo

Togo, a small west African nation of 7.15 million people, is scheduled to vote for a new parliament, despite the fact that elections have been cancelled twice — first in October 2012 and again in March 2013.  There’s no guarantee that elections this month will actually go forward, either.  While the government and opposition have apparently now reached a deal to hold elections later this month, the composition of the electoral commission remains a major open issue.

Togo’s president, Faure Gnassingbé, took office in 2005 with the support of the country’s military following the death of his father, Gnassingbé Eyadéma, who had served as Togo’s president since 1967.  Despite winning election in presidential votes in 2005 and 2010, he’s seen as somewhat of an authoritarian leader and his party, the Rassemblement du Peuple Togolais (RPT, Rally for the Togolese People) dominates the unicameral Assemblée nationale, holding 50 out of 81 seats.  Unlike its neighbors, there’s neither a Christian nor Muslim majority in Togo — out of every two Togolese adheres to indigenous beliefs, though one-third of its residents are Muslim and one-fifth are Christian.

Continue reading Eight sub-Saharan African elections within nine weeks highlights region’s fragile democracy →