Madagascar’s President Marc Ravalomanana must be wondering what more he has to do to satisfy the African Union (AU).
The continental body has barred him from its ranks and urged him to stage a rerun of the elections in which he beat Didier Ratsiraka.
Now the AU is recommending that Ravalomanana delay the National Assembly elections on December 15.
The move has surprised the European Union whose election observers have been in Madagascar for a month.
Kingsley Mamabolo, director for Africa at the Department of Foreign Affairs, said the opposition Arema Party of Ratsiraka alleged there were still instances of intimidation and arrests by the government.
”In light of this the AU feels it better to delay the election,” Mamabolo said. He expected the organisation to convey this to Ravalomanana this week.
Madagascar’s consul general in Johannesburg, Bruno Ranarivelo, insists there is no way of stopping the election at this late stage.
”I don’t know what I can say. There has not been an official statement. Mamabolo can’t speak for the AU. We will just have to wait for an official statement from the AU. EU observers have been in Madagascar for a month already. The AU, on the other hand, has sent nobody there since June.
”Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was there for a night,” said Ranarivelo referring to the minister’s visit to tell Ravalomanana why he had been barred from the union.
”It is quite surprising, therefore, to hear that that AU say the situation is unsuitable for elections.
”They did not send anyone there to make their own assessment.”
The AU view appears to have been based on the meeting in Pretoria last month with Pierrot Rajaonarivelo, leader of the external wing of Arema.
The exiled politician saw President Thabo Mbeki and the ambassadors of Zambia and Mozambique.
These three countries form the troika of the past, present and future chairpersons of the union. The union has charged them with steering Madagascar on to the road to democracy.
Ravalomanana assured the troika when he visited Pretoria in October that Madagascar had put the seven-month post-election battle for the presidency behind it.
The Malagasay Constitutional Court had endorsed his presidential election victory. Ratsiraka had conceded defeat and gone into exile.
Ravalomanana had established a government of national unity and called new elections.
This was not enough for the AU. Dlamini-Zuma told reporters in October she would see Arema representatives before deciding whether Ravalomanana was right about Madagascar fixing its own problems.
Rajoanarivelo, a former finance minister, is wanted by the Madagascar authorities investigating the looting of the state coffers to finance Ratsiraka’s defiance of the electorate.
While the external wing of Arema is calling for a delay, the party’s members inside, led by Pierre Raharigoana, are hard at work campaigning for the December 15 poll.
”Arema is actually fighting the election,” said Ranarivelo. ”They have fielded candidates in 90 of the 153 constituencies. Arema from Paris may want a delay, but Raharigoana’s people inside are in the election battle.
”This election absolutely will go ahead. There is no doubt about it. This election cannot be postponed in any event.”
European diplomats are puzzled at the AU’s enmity towards Ravalomanana. ”We are wondering if he is being punished for having had some business dealings with apartheid South Africa,” said one.
”What more can Ravalomanana do to show that he is the legitimately elected president?”
Madagascar was the most divisive issue at the inaugural AU summit in Durban.
It led to a bitter exchange of insults between Senegal’s President Abdoualye Wade and President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria.
The Senegalese was adamant that Madagascar be admitted to the union, while Obasanjo joined the majority who felt the post-election conflict in Madagascar made it an ideal test case for the union’s insistence on democratic changes of government.
The case is greatly weakened by the fact that both the United States and France recognise Ravalomanana’s government.
Western diplomats question the wisdom of the union making a test case of Madagascar while turning a blind eye to grossly anti-democratic behaviour by President Robert Mugabe’s government in Zimbabwe.
Dlamini-Zuma indicated in Durban that her objection to Ravalomanana was as much about style as substance.
”We became involved because we were faced with a country with two presidents,” she said. ”Ravalomanana declared himself president and only afterwards did he go to court. That is not how this is done,” she said.
At her October meeting with the Madagascar president, Dlamini-Zuma offered to send AU observers to the election this month.
Mamabolo said he imagined this would still happen if the elections went ahead despite AU misgivings.