GIC: The backstage of a makeshift red alarm meeting

The transitional president is recruiting a new prime minister. Casting is on the way for the time being. Andry Rajoelina is putting his plan into execution: executing the “consensual Transition”, and get rid of the Maputo processes. In other words, it is a slide back to the starting point. 

The Malagasy crisis has had its first birthday. The situation has not evolve that much. The latest recent Maputo meeting, boycotted by Andry Rajoelina, could have unblocked things since it addressed the setting up of the so much expected national unity government. This particular meeting, however, proved to be a far more decisive turning point than previously expected. The Rajoelina government took the liberty “to ban all of its political opponents” by denying return to Madagascar to the members of the Albert Zafy, Didier Ratsiraka and Marc Ravalomanana mobilities involved into Maputo III. 

Acting diplomats in Antananarivo vainly tried to convince Andry Rajoelina, but the young putsch maker refused to allow delegations to fly back immediately. Joaquim Chissano, the SADC mediator, would have attempted to contact Rajoelina, but His Highness was not inclined to communicate with Mozambique’s former president. 

Andry Rajoelina currently seems to ignore that his will to dictate alone could turn a very high bill up. The international community is waving sanctions. His political adversaries are progressively getting angered and more radical. “The forced exile inflicted upon his adversaries could be lethal to Andry Rajoelina”, commented one Malagasy politician. France has certainly caught that up. On this account, it has convened an emergency labelled “high level” ICG meeting. 

Somehow, the ICG’s fourth meeting, meant, or rather potentially supposed to be held in Antananarivo, would be an opportunity to save Andry Rajoelina’s skin. Could his adversaries embrace radicalism, he would quickly find it hard to resist any much longer. Andry Rajoelina does not want to figure out that the army is, as a matter of fact, deeply divided, and that his allies of yesterday have turned into his enemies of now and tomorrow. The triggering of a first reaction from the armed forces could well be the beginning of the end for the adventures of Super Rajoelina and the democracy busters’ league. The young putsch maker is boldly turning a blind eye on it all. His French mates are conscious of the danger, and are keen on avoiding the collapse of this transition and its leader, both on their way to crash before having been granted enough time to fly out of the nest.