Ratsiraka does not believe these elections to be the viable key to the crisis settlement

.”Why a so long black out?”
-“Silence is gold, is it not?”

Didier Ratsiraka must have not run out of practice over the years for skirting so easily around problematic questions basically supposed to destabilize him. His strategy seems so childishly easy though: not reacting frontally to any attack, winning time, diverting attention by quoting some dead writer or statesman and shortly switching to English. What a lesson of eloquence in the rule of arts… for sure a magnificent contrast to a DJ with little to put forth but the Suprem NTM rap music band’s lyrics.

The Special Electoral Court’s decision obviously disappointed the admiral, did however not outrage him whatsoever: “Unlike Mrs. Lalao Ravalomanana and Andry Rajoelina, I was not pressured to keep away from the elections.” Although perfectly knowing that he did not meet the requirements, he confessed to have simply tried his luck.

Didier Ratsiraka emphasized his will to run the presidential elections, then rejected the allegations, according to which he would have had the mission to thwart July 24th’s elections, which he did not support much either: “If I had worked for France, they would have denied me a visa, and if I were serving Rajoelina, he would not have done what it took to keep me abroad.”

The Ratsiraka political sphere did not enter any replacement candidate either: “how could I ever grant a right, which I have not? They sent me out, did they not? Does anyone ever ask a football player sent to the sin bin by a red card to name a replacement?”

Does France lurk behind the putsch?

According to Ratsiraka, the current political crisis has its roots in the year 2002’s events. He has actually never been pledging any recognition to Marc Ravalomanana’s mandate. Marc Ravalomanana would have conceded a second electoral round in the run of the agreement of Dakar, yet self proclaimed as president later on. The Red Admiral declared to have accepted to support Andry Rajoelina in 2009 on France’s bidding as a matter of compensation for the second round stolen from him in 2001.

“I was asked thrice to perpetrate a putsch, but every time I turn the offer down” and Didier Ratsiraka keeps pointing at France as mastermind. He denounced Paris’ interference reflected by its ambassadors’ political interventions noticed in Antananarivo all along the crisis. He actually blames his old friends for their leading role into the rejection of his candidacy by the SEC. Ratsiraka says to have kept away from Andry Rajoelina when the latter directed a putsch against the short term and “slovenly” military board of direction, a putsch during which ambassadors and clerics were dealt the hard way with.

.”How do you intend to have Marc Ravalomanana back home?”
.”by plane!”

Didier Ratsiraka believes the elections to be necessary, still also far from enough to settle the crisis for good. Besides, the use of a single ballot paper in a country in which 40% of the population can neither read nor write, happens to be miles away from restoring his confidence: “reading this ballot paper through and voting thereafter takes an average of two minutes. In a polling station of some 600 voters, the whole process would take 1200 minutes, or 20 hours in all.”

The former president emphatically insists on rounds of four party talks between this island’s presidents. The better if the debate were in live broadcasted, nationally or even internationally, why not? Each and everyone would  this way feel compelled to hold on to his word. Didier Ratsiraka generally blames the lack of fairness as the main cause of the long term crisis which has been engulfing Madagascar for a while so far. The current political issue he names “a rivalry between both mayors of Antananarivo City”, and wants the solutions to be produced by those who produced the problems at first.

According to the Admiral, the army generals would not oppose Marc Ravalomanana’s come back home. Andry Rajoelina would though. Even the general Richard “Bomb” Ravalomanana would have to comply with his superiors’ point, and they would be bound to accept the political decision. Finally, Ratsiraka rejects the Roadmap, and proudly argues that he would have turned US$1.5 billion down, supposed to buy his signature: “they patched us a constitution up in mere two hours!”