Christine Razanamahasoa : a foreclosure notice to the President of the National Assembly

The tide has turned for the parliamentarian MAPAR group which used to think to have secured an impregnable political position through a piece of law text supposed to tolerate neither argument nor compromise. The new Rajoelina political sphere claimed one third of the National Assembly’ seats and tried to claimed the upper hand overall by teaming with independent deputies from the Special Parliamentary Group. The parliamentary majority may be a wee bit scarce, remains though absolute anyway, and managed to claim every position in the permanent bureau – President, Vice-Presidents and Questors – and by so doing achieving a clean sweep on the chairmanship of parliamentary committees.
The overwhelming victory did however not last on the long term. The parliamentary Platform for Presidential Majority retaliated, sapped the adversary’s run up and brilliantly won the day. The Rajaonarimampianina supportive Parliament members managed to have the National Assembly’s permanent office dismantled. The permanent bureau’s composition  was actually elected through the sample of an internal regulation which has not yet been adopted. ” We challenge any direct or indirect attempt to dismantle the permanent office through the misuse of justice”, defended Christine Razanamahasoa .
“Parliamentary internal matters like elections at any level of the National Assembly may not evade constitutional control without plunging a whole nation into a despotic regime and even a state of lawlessness ,” argued the High Constitutional Court. The request issued by 40 parliament members from the PMP (Platform for Presidential Majority) was retained and accepted: ” any procedure which failed to be reviewed by the High Constitutional Court for constitutional may not be implemented.”
The first logical consequence is the dismantling of the Permanent Bureau of the National Assembly. Still, the High Constitutional Court displays evidence of leniency and refrains from sacking Razanamahasoa Christine and her clique right away. “In the name of the constitutional principle of state continuity, the National Assembly’s organs elected on February 18th and 19th 2014 may remain in charge until new members get elected in full compliance with the aforesaid National Assembly’s internal rules ” . The eviction notice will expire at the end of the regular meeting deemed to take place in May.
“This decision confirms that the Permanent Bureau is legal and may keep on acting as such,” replied Christine Razanamahasoa . Out of reluctancy to take her chance either on a political crisis or an institutional vacuum, she decided to keep away from defying the High Constitutional Court. Her time as head of the National Assembly are numbered, although she can still expect to get elected anew if the MAPAR keeps all of the members of the GPS group under its control.
As for Rajoelina’s favorite Minister of Justice, she holds the events as a plot schemed by those who do not want her where she is, and by those who do not want any woman at the head of any institution. If and when she is out, her MAPAR will have in this case to put another candidate in line for the future permanent bureau.
The outcast President of the National Assembly does not seem to appreciate the reprieve granted to her too much either. Her first lash is for the HCC: the High Constitutional Court would no longer respect the law. Her next lash is for the new president, blamed for allegedly interfering in judicial and legislative powers’ business: “Democracy is threatened ,” she said. Many other ones rather hold the High Constitutional Court’s move as a successful rescue of democracy. Appointing anyone else but Andry Rajoelina’s trojan horse Haja Resampa as Prime Minister would herald an era of peace for the President of the Republic, the man appointed by Andry Rajoelina. The expected breakdown of the GPS alliance should make things much easier since MAPAR will have lost its absolute majority.