PREVIEW
Despite AU censure, new president may receive SADC backing
One of President Colonel Michael Randrianirina’s first tasks is gaining international acceptance of his new regime after he took power in a Gen Z-inspired coup that followed weeks of protests.
Randrianirina, the head of Madagascar's elite Army Corps of Personnel and Administrative and Technical Services (known as CAPSAT) was sworn in as president by the High Constitutional Court on 17 October, seven days after he led the putsch that ousted Andry Rajoelina, who has since fled to France.
Demonstrations erupted after two councillors in the capital city Antananarivo were arrested over planned protests against water and electricity shortages that reflected longstanding grievances about substandard public services and elite corruption.
The day before Randrianirina was sworn into office the African Union condemned the coup and suspended Madagascar’s membership of the organisation. The United Nations followed suit, stating that it was ‘deeply concerned by the unconstitutional change of power’. ‘The decision was expected,’ said Randrianirina, adding that there would now be ‘behind-the-scenes negotiations’ with AU officials.
So far, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) – from which the AU is meant to take guidance on matters of regional constitutionality – has declined to rule on the legitimacy of the new regime.
Factors driving SADC’s caution probably include that Randrianirina is popular in Madagascar but Rajoelina is widely loathed. In addition, the president of SADC member Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa, himself came to power in 2017 via a coup d’état, while there is reluctance to side with an ally of the French government, whose military plane airlifted Rajoelina out of Antananarivo. Rajoelina was the fifth African leader close to France’s President Emmanuel Macron to have been ousted since 2020.
While UN Secretary-General António Guterres has urged ‘all the Malagasy stakeholders, including the youth, to work together to address the underlying causes of instability in the country,’ Randrianirina is already positioned as an ally of Gen Z (Dispatches, 6/10/25, Rajoelina is ‘ready to listen’ as opposition calls for his exit). He was jailed without trial for four months from November 2023 on accusation of inciting a mutiny and planning a coup, but student groups – part of the ‘Gen Z Madagascar’ youth movement whose protests led to Rajoelina’s departure – were among those who successfully campaigned for his release.
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