The confusion is far from over. The United Nations proposes that Madagascar hold presidential and parliamentary elections in May or June 2013 but Andry Rajoelina is holding out. The army installed him as national leader after its coup in March 2009 threw out his elected predecessor, Marc Ravalomanana. He now heads the Haute Autorité de la Transition (HAT) that was installed in November 2011, following a ‘road map’ signed the previous month by most political leaders (AC Vol 53 No 5, Who's the democrat now?).
There is logic behind the timetable suggested by the UN experts who, chaired by Akinyemi Adegbola, visited the island in April-May. Time is needed to establish a credible electoral register and the Commission électorale nationale indépendante pour la transition (CENIT) says it cannot be done before mid-November. The training of election officials began in early July and the register is full of discrepancies. ‘Out of a register of less than 7 million voters, there are 1,874,996 cases of people with matching national identity card numbers. Of these, 223,308 cases of people who, in addition to sharing the same national ID number, also have the same first name and last name,’ said the experts, whose report was leaked last month.
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