Madagascar president says coup under way as soldiers join protesters

The president of Madagascar Andry Rajoelina has claimed a coup is under way after weeks of intense youth-led protests.

Water and power outages triggered protests in the Indian Ocean country on 25 September, with the young population – of whom around three-quarters are believed to live in poverty – continuing to riot over general dissatisfaction with Mr Rajoelina.

In a major blow to the president, troops from the elite army unit CAPSAT, which helped him seize power during a coup in 2009, joined protesters on Saturday for one of the biggest demonstrations since the unrest began.

Colonel Michael Randrianirina, a commander of the CAPSAT unit, said his troops had exchanged fire with security forces who were attempting to quell the protests in the capital Antananarivo and that one of his soldiers had been killed.

A unit of the paramilitary gendarmerie, which had been tackling the protests together with the police, also turned on the government on Sunday, saying it was coordinating with the CAPSAT headquarters.

The Intervention Forces of the National Gendarmerie said in a statement broadcast on Real TV: “All use of force and any improper behaviour towards our fellow citizens are prohibited, as the gendarmerie is a force meant to protect people and not to defend the interests of a few individuals.”

Mr Rajoelina’s office released a statement saying he “wishes to inform the nation and the international community that an attempt to seize power illegally and by force” had been “initiated”.

“In view of the extreme gravity of this situation,” the president’s office “strongly condemns this attempt at destabilisation and calls upon all forces of the nation to unite in defence of constitutional order and national sovereignty,” it said.

Later on Sunday, however, Reuters reported that the president’s whereabouts were unknown, with several people in the region believing he had left the country.

Col Randrianirina denied any coup had taken place, but the unit claimed to have taken control of all of Madagascar’s armed forces and said it had installed a new leader of the military, General Demosthene Pikulas.

“We responded to the people’s call,” Col Randrianirina told reporters on Sunday, declining to say if they had asked Mr Rajoelina to resign.

Mr Rajoelina dismissed his entire government, including the prime minister, on 29 September in a failed attempt to appease the protesters.

Speaking to crowds from an armoured vehicle on Saturday, Col Randrianirina said the president, his new prime minister, the minister of the gendarmerie and the commander of the gendarmerie “must leave power. That’s all.”

“Do we call this a coup? I don’t know yet,” Col Randrianirina said.

The protests have been led by a group calling itself “Gen Z Madagascar”, and have been joined by civic groups and trade unions.

The United Nations says the demonstrations have left at least 22 people dead and dozens injured – numbers disputed by the government.

The US Embassy in Madagascar has advised American citizens to shelter-in-place due to a “highly volatile and unpredictable” situation, while the African Union urged all parties, “both civilian and military, to exercise calm and restraint.”

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Protesters have brought up a range of issues, including poverty and the cost of living, access to tertiary education, and alleged corruption and embezzlement of public funds by government officials and their families and associates.

Mr Rajoelina, 51, first became the leader of a transitional government following a 2009 coup that forced then President Marc Ravalomanana to flee the country and lose power, before he was elected president in 2018 and re-elected in 2023 in a vote boycotted by opposition parties.

Madagascar, a large island of 31 million people off the east coast of Africa, has had several leaders removed in coups and has a history of political crises since it gained independence from France in 1960.