NY Times :Mayor Declares a Coup in Madagascar

ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — As of Saturday, this exotic island, home to 300 species of frogs, 75 species of chameleons and 3 dozen species of lemurs, also has two species of politicians claiming to run the country.

After days of deadly antigovernment protests, one of those politicians — Andry Rajoelina, this capital city’s mayor — declared that he was now in charge, essentially announcing a coup in this democratic country. So far, the military has yet to take sides.

Mr. Rajoelina and his supporters accuse the president, Marc Ravalomanana, of being a dictator who cares nothing about the people in one of the world’s poorest countries, where more than half of its 20 million people eke by on less than $1 a day.

“Since the president and the government have not taken their responsibilities, I proclaim I will now rule Madagascar and set up a transitional government,” Mr. Rajoelina, 34, declared before an exultant crowd of 3,000 that had lined this former French colony’s main boulevard, the Avenue de la Libération.

“A request for the immediate resignation of the president will soon be filed with Parliament in order to comply with the legal procedure,” he said.

It was hardly clear what procedure he was referring to, but he seemed confident in his presumptions. He insisted that he would now be giving the military and the police their orders and told civil servants to stay home on Monday. He asked foreign nations and the central bank to stop supporting Mr. Ravalomanana, a phenomenally wealthy businessman who has led the country since his election in 2001.

Mr. Ravalomanana, 59, spent the afternoon in a meeting with several of his ministers, then played down the mayor’s attempted power grab as if it were a bureaucratic hiccup.

“It’s up to the minister of justice and the high court to deal with this,” he said. “We have to obey the law in Madagascar.”

It has never seemed likely that the president would simply step aside. Once a peddler who sold homemade yogurt off the back of his bicycle, he has since built a conglomerate that markets not only dairy and other food products but also controls a television station and a number of retail stores.

President Ravalomanana and Mayor Rajoelina — if different species from different political parties — nevertheless share much from the same political gene pool: they have huge egos.

The charismatic Mr. Rajoelina, a former entertainment impresario, goes by the nickname TGV, which is meant to call to mind the energy of France’s high-speed train.

The leader of his own Ready Young Malagasies party, Mr. Rajoelina was elected mayor in December 2007 with 63 percent of the vote, a rare and major defeat for President Ravalomanana’s I Love Madagascar party.

The president was once the capital’s mayor, and the two politicians have feuded over how to run the city. Contentious matters have included how Antananarivo will pay off monstrous municipal debts partly run up by Mr. Ravalomanana.

In the process, the ambitious boyish-looking mayor has become the champion of all the opposition groups, including the many here who are against government talks with the South Korean company Daewoo, which is negotiating to lease three million acres here, or about half the size of Belgium.

Last Monday, the animosity between the two politicians finally turned morbid when the authorities battled anti-Ravalomanana demonstrators.

More than 30 people — most likely looters taking advantage of the rioting — died in a fire at a building full of small shops.

By some estimates there have been more than 100 deaths during two days of protests, and now there is the possibility that more bloodshed lies ahead.

Some soldiers arrived at Saturday’s rally, but quickly left after rocks were thrown from the crowd. “They’re intent on keeping order, but their position now is they want to remain neutral,” said the American ambassador, R. Niels Marquardt, who, along with other diplomats, has tried to talk the two politicians off the ledge.

“The only durable solution is a dialogue between the president and the mayor, and we’ve been pushing for that for two weeks,” Mr. Marquardt added. “They both say they are willing to negotiate without conditions, but then there’s always some obstacle that keeps them apart. It’s a bit of a cat-and-mouse game.”

While better known these days as the title of a computer-animated film, Madagascar is the world’s fourth-largest island, a treasure of ecological diversity off the southeastern coast of Africa where an estimated 70 percent of the wildlife can be found nowhere else.

The flora and fauna have suffered from deforestation and other modern tribulations, and the people have never fared particularly well.

Now, the political turmoil threatens to scare off investors.

“We’ve been bullish on Madagascar, but this has sent a shiver through the international community,” said Mr. Marquardt.

The anti-Ravalomanana rally took place at the historic May 13 Square, the crowd waiting hours beneath a scorching sun for Mayor Rajoelina to appear. “A dictatorship reigns in Madagascar,” he told them, using some of the same oratorical flair he once employed as a disc jockey.

On Monday, rioters set afire several businesses owned by the president, who then vowed they would all be quickly rebuilt. For this, the mayor mocked him at Saturday’s rally. “What of the people who died? Will they be repaired with money?” Playing to the poor — an inclination of both the president and the mayor — usually goes over well. But the Malagasy have now lived under colonialism, socialism and democracy, with the masses still destitute.

“Politicians always use the poor people to get into power, and then they forget us,” said a woman who called into one of the capital’s radio stations. “I don’t believe them anymore.”