Outpoll | Madagascar Army Unit Seizes Power Amid Street Celebrations

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Madagascar Army Unit Seizes Power Amid Street Celebrations

Madagascar Army Unit Seizes Power Amid Street Celebrations

2 days ago7 min read3 comments

The capital city of Antananarivo erupted in a spontaneous, chaotic carnival of celebration today, a stark and immediate public verdict delivered not at the ballot box but in the dust-choked streets, as an elite military unit declared it had successfully seized power from President Andry Rajoelina. This was not a slow-burning constitutional crisis; this was a swift, surgical decapitation of the state, executed with the chilling efficiency of a military operation and met with the roaring approval of a populace long weary of economic despair and political stagnation.Witnesses described scenes of near-euphoria as crowds surged around army vehicles, their olive-green frames now adorned with waving citizens, while soldiers, their rifles slung casually, accepted handshakes and posed for photographs—a surreal tableau that blurred the lines between liberation and insurrection. The unit in question, the 1st Regiment of the Intervention Forces (RFI), is no ordinary garrison; it is the spear tip of the Malagasy armed forces, a battle-hardened group with extensive UN peacekeeping experience, whose very public pivot from state protector to state usurper sends a seismic shockwave through the fragile political architecture of not just Madagascar, but the entire Indian Ocean region.The move comes after months of escalating tensions, with Rajoelina’s government facing blistering criticism over its handling of a devastating drought in the south that has pushed hundreds of thousands to the brink of famine, coupled with rampant inflation and corruption scandals that have implicated his inner circle. The President, who first came to power himself in a 2009 coup backed by the army before being elected in 2018, now finds his own political history repeating itself in the most brutal fashion, a stark lesson in the fickleness of martial alliances.The international community is now holding its breath; the African Union, which has a staunch anti-coup doctrine, will almost certainly suspend Madagascar’s membership, while former colonial power France and regional hegemon South Africa are scrambling to assess their leverage. The critical question now is whether this military intervention will prove to be a brief, corrective interlude paving the way for credible elections, or the beginning of another protracted period of junta rule and international isolation for this island nation, which possesses unique biodiversity and strategic minerals but has been perpetually hamstrung by political instability.Analysts are already drawing parallels to the 2009 coup, which led to a five-year freeze on international aid and sent the economy into a tailspin, a grim precedent that the new military rulers will be desperate to avoid. For the citizens dancing in the streets of Antananarivo, today represents a visceral release of pent-up frustration, a moment of intoxicating possibility. But the cold dawn of tomorrow will bring the hard realities of governance, the weight of international condemnation, and the immense challenge of reassembling a fractured state—a task for which even the most elite soldiers may find themselves tragically unprepared.