Published: February 2, 2009
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — Mayor Andry Rajoelina, who over the weekend claimed he was now running this island nation, had a disappointing first Monday in “power”: the ministries he ordered closed remained open; the civil servants he told to stay home went to work; even the children he allowed to skip school studied at their desks.
All in all, the young mayor of this capital seemed to have seriously overplayed his hand by declaring that with the support of God and the people, he was replacing President Marc Ravalomanana as the country’s leader.
By day’s end, his strategy had undergone significant revisions and he was dispatching aides to the nation’s constitutional court with papers asking for the impeachment of the twice-elected president. This would be a far lengthier procedure than the immediate substitution he had in mind, requiring an unlikely two-thirds vote of a legislature still dominated by his rival.
“I know people are in a hurry, but we can’t force things to happen,” said Mr. Rajoelina, a populist firebrand, standing in the gated driveway that runs alongside the white columns of his colonial-style house. “We will try the legal channels.”
And so ended a turbulent week of Malagasy politics, as bizarre as some of the giant jumping rats and ring-eyed lemurs that inhabit this biological wonderland, and as brutal as the 100 or so bodies buried in the past few days, a toll taken after antigovernment demonstrations turned deadly.
“I am afraid of the mayor,” said one woman at work at the Education Ministry, too frightened to disclose her name. “He is not yet in power, and he says, ‘I command the government, I command the army.’ What would happen if he really took power? He’d be even worse than the current president.”
About 165 million years ago, as continents drifted, Madagascar splintered off into the Indian Ocean roughly 300 miles east of Africa. Evolution was most inventive within this steamy isolation. Even today, most creatures here do not exist elsewhere, including moths the size of dinner plates.
People finally arrived 2,000 years ago, most paddling across the vastness from Malaysia and Indonesia. Their names came to be as oversized as the wildlife. One late 18th century monarch took the name Andrianampoinimerinandriantsimitoviaminandriampanjaka. His kingdom reached over much of this lush island, the fourth largest in the world.
The geography is visually splendid, with mountains and deserts and ribbons of rain forests. But Madagascar has not been a paradise for its people. It is one of the globe’s poorest countries, with more than half the population getting by on less than $1 a day.
Politically, the climate has long been as unsettling as the cyclones that regularly ravage the coastline. While the current president, Mr. Ravalomanana, has been elected twice, his popularity has now taken a cliff dive. He runs not only this nation of 20 million but also a mammoth business conglomerate. People perceive conflicts in his various interests.
In November, word spread that President Ravalomanana had made a deal with the Daewoo corporation, leasing it more than three million acres of farmland for 99 years, making Madagascar the breadbasket of South Korea.
The government has since said the deal has never gone beyond the early stages of negotiations, but public outrage hasn’t yet been capped.
“Foreign governments give money to Madagascar, and instead the money goes only to our president,” is a favorite allegation leveled by Mr. Rajoelina, an entertainment impresario elected here in December 2007 as the mayor of the capital and now the fulcrum of opposition against the president.
Malagasy politics are not a simple affair, and many here believe that the 34-year-old mayor is actually a front man for one of the island’s earlier presidents, the exiled Didier Ratsiraka.
After Vivo, a television station owned by Mr. Rajoelina, aired a long interview with Mr. Ratsiraka, it was shut down by President Ravalomanana. On Jan. 26, in seeming retribution, people left one of the mayor’s rallies and destroyed a television station belonging to the president, along with other stores and factories that were part of his extensive holdings.
Mr. Rajoelina continues to stage rallies nearly every day, drawing thousands of people along Antananarivo’s broadest boulevard. Each begins with the Vangelis theme from the film “1492: The Conquest of Paradise.” Then singers and poets precede an appearance by the mayor, who, while barely visible behind his bodyguards, rails against Mr. Ravalomanana, calling him a dictator and explaining his plans for a transitional government.
But on Monday, the crowd had thinned to half the size of the one that had been present on Saturday to hear his claim of command of the country, and to a fraction of the ones in the days before. After declaring himself in charge, it appeared time for the mayor to either put up or shut up, and instead he did neither.
“The balance seems to be tilting in the direction of the president,” said Niels Marquadt, the American ambassador. “But this isn’t over. It’s going to be a long-term process.”
That same sentiment — the dreary expectation of extended turmoil — seemed pervasive on Monday in the government ministries. “The Malagasy people are like riders aboard a rickety bus,” said a woman named Jocelyn. “This bus cannot find a driver.”
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