Ravalomanana was on April 29 officially declared the winner of a December
presidential election, after months of dispute with incumbent president
Didier Ratsiraka who has refused to accept the result, leaving the island
with two rival governments.
In a sign of international recognition for Ravalomanana, the popular mayor
of the capital, France and the 15-nation European Union said on Sunday they
would attend Monday’s swearing in ceremony.
A foreign analyst described the gesture as amounting to ”conditional
recognition” with the EU stressing the need for reconciliation with longtime
ruler Ratsiraka.
Meanwhile, Senegal’s president Abdoulaye Wade, who has led efforts to
reconcile the two men, said he would host talks between them in Dakar on May
13 and 14.
In a statement Wade said he had ”consulted both parties, who are in
agreement to take part (in a second round of talks in Dakar.”
”They will come with a number of their supporters and other personalities,”
he said.
Ratsiraka, however, convened a special session of parliament for Monday to
coincide with the swearing in.
The National Assembly and Senate have been urged to meet at Mahajanga in the
northwest of the politically divided island to debate how to ”restore social
peace and national concord”, Ratsiraka said in a decree.
The Assembly has also been called to hold its next ordinary sitting in
Antananarivo on Tuesday.
Ratsiraka’s decree followed a cabinet meeting in Toamasina, the main east
coast port where he fell back with his government after Ravalomanana took
hold of the capital early in March.
The National Assembly, elected in May 1998, has 150 members, 62 of whom
belong to Ratsiraka’s Arema party. About 60 members support Ravalomanana and
others, elected as independents, have announced readiness to rally to him.
The rival leaders signed a reconciliation pact in Dakar on April 18, but it
failed to end Madagascar’s crisis.
Since the poll, the impoverished Indian Ocean nation has been increasingly
and sometimes violently split between backers of Ravalomanana, the popular
mayor of the capital, and Ratsiraka loyalists.
Last week, a visiting delegation from the Organisation of African Unity left
without managing to sort out the imbroglio.
Ratsiraka, in breach of the original April 18 pact struck in Dakar, has
refused to lift a blockade of Antananarivo, which has put a stranglehold on
the highland city for more than two months.
Instead, his supporters have strengthened their actions, which include
erecting roadblocks and blowing up bridges.
Governors of four provinces, who support Ratsiraka, have proclaimed
”independence” since the High Constitutional Court declared, after a
recount, that Ravalomanana had won the December 16 first round of
presidential elections outright with 51,46% of the votes.
Ratsiraka, who has held power for all but five years since 1975, has said he
does not recognise the court. – Sapa-AFP