Marc Ravalomanana has resigned as Madagascar’s president and transferred power to the military, diplomats said yesterday on condition of anonymity.
”The order signed by Ravalomanana transfers the powers of the president and the prime minister to a military board,” one diplomat said.
Several other sources confirmed the 59-year-old leader’s resignation.
“Apparently the president is handing over to the military and is going to make a declaration,” an aide said in a text message to journalists. Contacted by telephone, the aide declined to give further details.
Weeks of turmoil and protests, led by young opposition leader Andry Rajoelina, have killed 135 people on Madagascar, crippled tourism and scared foreign investors in the mining and oil exploration sectors.
In a further sign that he was assuming power, Rajoelina led supporters into the presidential palace in Antananarivo after a rally in which he declared eight of Ravalomanana’s ministers had resigned due to the crisis.
Presidential guards and hundreds of supporters are protecting Ravalomanana at another palace which is his residence on the outskirts of Antananarivo. He had vowed to fight to the death if pro-opposition soldiers try to drive him from power.
On Monday, Madagascar’s traditionally neutral army threw its weight behind Rajoelina and stormed a presidential palace in the heart of Antananarivo. It also seized the central bank.
Tanks and scores of soldiers guarded the buildings yesterday. Though bracing for possible violence, Malagasy still sought to go about their business, with schools staying open and some people opening shops and going to work as normal.
Rajoelina, a 34-year-old former disc jockey and sacked mayor of Antananarivo, has been calling for Ravalomanana’s resignation since the start of this year and now wants him arrested. He calls the president a dictator running Madagascar like a private firm.
“Many ministers have handed in their resignation to me,” Rajoelina told 10,000 supporters at a rally, naming eight. The crowd chanted: “President, president!” at the opposition leader who says he is now the de facto leader of Madagascar.
The African Union, whose next summit was scheduled to take place in Madagascar, said it would not accept any unconstitutional change of government. And the EU has said it would cut aid to anyone coming to power by force.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
‘PLAINLY ERRONEOUS’: The justice department appealed a Trump-appointed judge’s blocking of the release of a report into election interference by the incoming president US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal cases against US president-elect Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents, has resigned after submitting his investigative report on Trump, an expected move that came amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead. The US Department of Justice disclosed Smith’s departure in a footnote of a court filing on Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions
RSS