Madagascan President Marc Ravalomanana, who resigned on Tuesday, lost the support of the people and the army after failing to live up to the popular support that brought him to power seven years ago.
Initially timid and approachable after a lengthy post-election crisis, the 59-year-old Ravalomanana became more remote over the years until critics complained that he was inaccessible and authoritarian.
After three months of a bitter feud with opposition leader Andry Rajoelina, a beleaguered Ravalomanana issued an order transferring his powers to a transitional military authority.
Rajoelina on Tuesday however rejected the transfer of power from Ravalomanana to a transitional military authority, an army official said.
”During a meeting at the episcopate of army generals, religious mediators and diplomats, Rajoelina rejected the transfer of power to the military announced by the president,” Colonel Noel Rakotonandrasana told AFP.
”The opposition leader walked out of the meeting”, when the order confirming Ravalomanana’s resignation and transferring all his powers — as well as those of the prime minister — to a military authority was read, said the colonel, who attended the meeting.
‘I will die with you’
”I am staying with you and if I have to die, I will die with you,” were the defiant words Ravalomanana’s spokesperson said the president told a handful of diehard loyal guards holed up with him in his Iavoloha palace on Monday.
But Ravalomanana’s fate was effectively sealed when the army and members of his presidential guard turned against him last week. Most of his family left the country and speculation abounded that he would follow them in exile.
After using recent elections to tighten his grip on power, the challenge from a 34-year-old former disc jockey initially looked too feeble and offered few hints of the strongman’s almost sheepish exit, three months later.
Resentment left over the political turmoil of 2001 poisoned Ravalomanana’s relations with the army until the end, with the president suspecting many generals of having remained loyal to his predecessor, Didier Ratsiraka.
Brought up in rural Madagascar, the one-time milk vendor was largely unknown on the country’s political scene until he was elected mayor of the capital, Antananarivo, in late 1999.
He forged close ties with influential churches that assured him of their unconditional support but the backing faded amid economic woes and the Catholic Church distanced itself.
Even so, he swept back to power in 2006 presidential elections, won a referendum on changing the Constitution in 2007 and his party triumphed in successive local and parliamentary polls.
His backers hailed him for maintaining political stability, especially during the seven-month face-off with Ratsiraka after the 2001 elections that split the country into two.
But the fly in the ointment appeared in December 2007, when Rajoelina won an election as mayor of Antananarivo.
Told to quit
A year later Ravalomanana was at bay, despite ordering the sacking of Rajoelina as mayor and closing down his influential television station. On Saturday he was told by the opposition leader to quit.
In his business career Ravalomanana built himself an agro-based food empire, making him one of the richest men on the island, where nearly 70% of the country’s 17 million people live in abject poverty.
But his ambitious economic plans for the impoverished country faltered, with the major setback coming in 2003 when he eliminated taxes on several commodities to spur domestic consumption and encourage industrial growth.
The programme collapsed with devastating economic ramifications that sparked a 66% currency depreciation in 2004.
Investors, meanwhile, felt shut out of many sectors which were monopolised by the president, who is accused of giving away mineral rights and other assets, notably with the agreement to lease vast swathes of farmland to South Korean industrial giant, Daewoo.
In addition Ravalomana failed to keep promises to reform electoral regulations that he had criticised in 2002, while cracking down on opponents. — Sapa-AFP