A president in a general accountant’ suit, or something like that

The traditional inspection of troops did not reflect the martial respect commanding aura supposed to radiate from any new supreme chief of the armed forces. He is miles away from being as popular as his predecessors; disparagers look down on his constitution unsuited to any tailor made tux as well as his alleged lack of charisma, whereas some others lift their thumbs up to his simplicity. The new President actually has a handful of other qualities.

Brilliant studies and classical career

Aged 55, Hery Rajaonarimampianina is everything but a standard average Joe. His economic and accounting science expertise has a reassuring effect on citizens, as well as on the island’s financial backers and economic partners. He studied and claimed a master in economic sciences from the University of Antananarivo in 1982. He studied during the next couple of years at the University of  Trois Rivieres, federal state of Quebec, Canada, claimed a Certified General Accountant’s Association (C.G.A) in 1986, and turned in 1991 into a general accountant in Canada.

His brilliant studies make Hery Rajaonarimampianina’s resume decent to no further extent. There were no major success stories to be recorded before his rise at the Finance Ministry and his access to the AIR MADAGASCAR airline company’s board. His title of President of the Order of General Accountants is but symbolic. That was what he used to make a living from, together with some teaching jobs. In 1995, he founded a accountant cabinet.

The electoral rabbit sneaking out from the hat

Hery Rajaonarimampianina made what can be called a very shooting star’s dash to the presidency. Three major political figures, namely Didier Ratsiraka, Lalao Ravalomanana and Andry Rajoelina were rejected from the starting line by then. The World Community and the Special Electoral Court were doing what it took to soothe their frustration by allowing them to let replacement candidates compete in their stead. So did Hery Rajaonarimampianina turn into a candidate, though not for replacing any of the aforementioned big fishes, but rather thanks to Kolo Roger and Jules Etienne, both of them foreign based candidates rejected from the competition as well.

but a poorly elected president, was he not?

The HERY VAOVAO party’s champion claimed the second place at the end of the first electoral round mostly thanks to a large scale campaigning machine and support untold of from national channels basically supposed to remain neutral. The TVM and RNM national channels, just like the concerned administration, displayed evidences of sacred devotion to their contribution to his electoral breakthrough.

The Special Electoral Court and the Electoral Commission largely turned a blind eye on the dubious schemes which contributed to this success as well. Hery Rajaonarimampianina theoretically kept his hands clean from frauds though. Other people did the dirty job for him, for his sake. Yet, even those who were acknowledged to have conducted vote buying on the voting day escaped sanctions.

Denunciations of pressure on administration agents and threats to cut their financial retribution for the sake of boosting the ruling power’s champion were progressively coming forth. Such practices have always been in use so far, and as per usual, neither of the electoral institutions decided to stand up against them.

No evidence, so no subersive practice!

The expected presence of running candidates’ delegates inside polling stations was told to prove enough in order to give credit to every electoral document turned out from the aforesaid polling station. No election would be held as rigged if the fraud had not been reported while it was taking shape.
“The electoral frauds are fictional; the unbiased Court decided so, and respected the People’s choice, a People now called upon granting respect to its decision in return” declared Hery Rajaonarimampianina in the first moments of triumph. He said to owe his victory to “divine providence and the People’s trust”. “This is victory to the Malagasy People, triumph to Democracy” he added.