Rajoelina mobility: still more concessions to preserve the transition’s presidency

Andry Rajoelina and his mobility are going to have to choose between the Transition’s presidency and the government’s leadership; It’s a severe backslide when they were used to believe that highest seat of the transitional period was acquired.

The TGV came to Maputo to try to confirm their grip on the government and to get the majority in the future parliament. Up against tough negotiation rounds, they finally have to aim at far more modest ambitions. Before his departure for Maputo, Andry Rajoelina had let it known that he was not going not to make any more concessions than necessary. 

The Rajoelina mobility is putting forward the maintenance of Andry Rajoelina at the Transition’s presidency as a pre condition. The HAT’s allies are considering this gain as irreplaceable. In Maputo, the three other mobilities are far from thinking this way. Neither in the first agreements, nor in the Transition’s Charter has Rajoelina’s name been explicitly quoted as Transition’s president. 

According to Marc Ravalomanana, the designation of the Transition’s president is the outgoing president’s task. The former chief of state would have been lobbying his counterparts to contest Andry Rajoelina’s de facto presidency. The first lines’ political prisoners having already been released, the Ravalomanana mobility is definitely focusing on the role distribution in the future Transition’s institutions. 

Didier Ratsiraka is claiming to be at the origin of the popular movement and yearning to have his mobility on top of the transition. In the name of the paramount regional balance, he is putting forward that the Transition’s presidential seat should be confided to “someone from the coast”, and that of the Prime minister, to someone from the high lands. The admiral is, by so doing, ruining the Andry Rajoelina-Monja Roindefo tandem, and condemning one of them to the sacrifice. 

Contrary to both other former presidents who committed to keep out of the Transition’s leadership, Albert Zafy has nothing against the idea to recover the presidential seat. Besides, he has also been pledging that the popular movement’s leader should not be given the Transition’s presidency. 

After Maputo I, Andry Rajoelina has been saying loud that he has been doing enough concession so far. However, he has actually barely dropped a thing, since the HAT president only conceded agreements concerning the Ravalomanana and Ratsiraka cases. Both former presidents got a pre-amnesty on two different degrees. 

By granting some favours as charges cancellations, the release of political prisoners, though without the dropping of their prosecutions, Andry Rajoelina had legitimately thought to have given up enough. In Maputo, he put it on and left the negotiation table. 

The message is clear for the Rajoelina mobility. Could this second appointment fail, the HAT would still have the judicial weapon against the Ravalomanana mobility’s figures who only benefited from a temporary or conditional release. As for Ratsiraka and his siblings, their fate will be suspended to an amnesty law which still seems very far from being passed.