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Colonel Michael Randrianirina was sworn in as president of Madagascar on Friday, days after his elite navy unit took over the impoverished African island nation and former president Andry Rajoelina fled the nation.
Randrianirina’s inauguration on the constitutional courtroom adopted weeks of youth-led road protests in opposition to Rajoelina. Within the demonstrations, sparked by water and electrical energy shortages, at the least 22 folks have been killed and greater than 100 injured, in keeping with the UN.
The Capsat unit of the navy took over the Indian Ocean island earlier this week after Rajoelina, who was reported to have fled the nation in a French-registered jet, was impeached by parliament for dereliction of obligation.
On Friday, Randrianirina, wearing civilian garments, stated: “Right now marks a historic turning level for our nation.” At an inauguration attended by navy officers, politicians and members of the Gen Z groups whose protests precipitated Rajoelina’s fall, he added: “We joyfully open a brand new chapter within the lifetime of our nation.”
The brand new navy authorities has pledged at hand energy again to civilians inside two years as soon as a brand new structure is drafted and electoral legal guidelines determined. Madagascar has a historical past of navy takeovers adopted by handovers to shaky civilian administrations.
Different coups since Madagascar gained independence from France in 1960 occurred in 1972 after which in 2009, when earlier youth-led protests swept Rajoelina, then a 34-year-old disc-jockey, to energy.
“I’ll absolutely, fully, and justly fulfil the excessive duties of my place as president of the Republic of Madagascar,” Randrianirina stated in a ceremony that included a small marching band and troopers performing a conventional sword-fighting show.
Lots of gathered to have a good time within the capital’s essential sq., which has been remodeled from the sit-in web site of anti-government demonstrations to a spot for celebrating the nation’s new navy rulers.
“I’m somewhat bit nervous about what comes subsequent,” stated Olivia Tsimijaly, a scholar who wore a whistle around her neck as she cheered the information of the inauguration. “However we have been preventing for anybody that may higher our lives. It doesn’t matter who does it, as long as the job will get performed.”
Randrianirina denied he had performed a coup, saying that the constitutional courtroom had backed the transition. However earlier this week the navy dissolved many of the nation’s establishments together with the senate and the constitutional courtroom the place Randrianirina was later sworn in.
This week, the African Union suspended Madagascar “till constitutional order is restored”.
Representatives of Rajoelina stated in a press release that some excessive courtroom judges had been threatened by the navy forward of the colonel’s swearing in.
Madagascar, a Ukraine-sized island off the coast of Mozambique, is the world’s largest exporter of vanilla and a supply of gems and industrial minerals, together with graphite. Swaths of its hardwood forests have been ransacked by loggers.
After years of mismanagement and unstable management, the island stays one of many world’s poorest international locations with an annual GDP per capita of $545 in nominal phrases, in keeping with the World Financial institution, making it poorer theoretically than both war-torn South Sudan or the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In deforested elements of southern Madagascar, the place the highest soil blows away in clouds of crimson mud, there was a slow-burning famine for years.
Africa has seen a number of coups lately, generally with the assist of younger folks, although navy takeovers have been concentrated in west Africa and the Sahel area.
