Who is Madagascar’s fleeing president Andry Rajoelina?

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By Tim Cocks and Ammu Kannampilly

ANTANANARIVO/NAIROBI (Reuters) -A former DJ once nicknamed “TGV” after the French fast train for his dynamism, Madagascar’s Andry Rajoelina was the world’s youngest head of state at 34 when he came to power in a coup in 2009.

Now the three-time president has fled after disappointing the Indian Ocean island’s young majority in the latest protest cycle against political elites.

The military unit that joined the Gen Z demonstrations last weekend – prompting his departure – was the same one that installed him 16 years ago when Rajoelina’s charisma had rallied youngsters frustrated at poverty and corruption.

At the time, Rajoelina was six years too young to even legally be president, according to the constitution. But his youth, and his celebrity status as a former DJ and radio station owner, were precisely what gave him the advantage.

When he successfully ran for mayor of the capital Antanarivo in 2007, his party was called Tanora MalaGasy Vonona (Young Malagasys Determined). The “TGV” moniker was a play on words: the party initials and a nod to his high-speed personality.

RAJOELINA THE LATEST DISAPPOINTMENT TO MADAGASCAR’S YOUTH

Rajoelina had consistently clashed with then President Marc Ravalomanana, branding his government a dictatorship when it shut down his TV channel in 2008.

Yet only a few years earlier Ravalomanana had himself been the anti-establishment figure bringing youths out onto the street to oust an ageing president.

Suddenly Ravalomanana, then in his late 50s, was the out-of-touch oldster, so when soldiers booted him out and installed Rajoelina, many Malagasy youth cheered.

Sixteen years on, Gen Z citizens accuse the now 51-year-old Rajoelina of having kept none of his rapid-fire promises.

Noone compares him to a high-speed train anymore.

While Rajoelina had vowed to improve standards of living, he failed to turn around a long decline in economic fortunes: GDP per capita has nearly halved between independence in 1960 and 2020, according to the World Bank.

Extreme poverty blights three quarters of the population, young people cannot find jobs, while power and water shortages have made their lives a misery.

While fleeing on a French military jet, according to official and diplomatic sources, the increasingly isolated leader warned of an attempted putsch by soldiers supporting the protests. On Tuesday, an army commander said that the military was taking over the nation and dissolving most institutions.

GRAND CLAIMS

Born in 1974, in Antisirabe – a spa town in the Malagasy highlands – Rajoelina, unlike his predecessor, came from a fairly privileged background, his father an army colonel.

He took to DJ-ing in his teens, and started an events company, eventually buying a radio station.

But the personality quirks that made him entertaining did not always make for a great leader. As Madagascar reeled from COVID-19 shocks, Rajoelina – known for his tendency to make grand claims – touted a herbal tonic, saying it would cure it within days, without clinical evidence.

In 2022, inspired by the animated franchise “Madagascar”, he offered international investors tax exemptions to import giraffes, zebras and elephants from sub-Saharan Africa to boost tourism. None did.

Meanwhile, ordinary citizens struggled to eke out a living.

“People don’t have refrigeration for medication, don’t have water for basic hygiene,” Ketakandriana Rafitoson, the global vice-chair of Transparency International and a Malagasy, told Reuters, adding that corruption had corroded public trust.

Last year, a London court convicted Rajoelina’s former chief of staff of offering to help precious stone miner Gemfields win lucrative mining rights in exchange for bribes amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The country fell from 118 to 140 in Transparency International’s corruption index between 2012 and 2024. 

Rajoelina stepped down in 2014 as leader of a transitional authority but became president again after winning a 2018 election.

His re-election in 2023 was preceded by weeks of protests related to opposition accusations of unfair voting conditions and claims he should be barred from running because he acquired French citizenship in 2014 – a sore point with citizens of the former French colony.

‘WE GAVE HIM A CHANCE’

On Monday night, in an address to the nation broadcast on Facebook, Rajoelina said that he had been compelled to move to a safe location to protect his life. He did not disclose his whereabouts but struck a defiant note, saying he would not “allow Madagascar to be destroyed”.

But on Tuesday, the lower house of parliament or National Assembly voted to impeach him, while Colonel Michael Randrianirina, a senior figure in the military’s CAPSAT unit that backed the protesters, said the army was taking over the nation.

“Whatever the outcome of this crisis, Rajoelina’s legacy is already defined,” said Transparency International’s Rafitoson. “His rule has left the country weaker, poorer, and more unequal.”

“He should have stuck to running nightclubs.”

On the streets of Antananarivo, protesters were desperate for change. 

“We gave him a chance,” said Nanou Rakoto, a 27-year-old market trader. “Life in Madagascar is so hard… We need someone who can pay attention to our problems.”

(Reporting by Ammu Kannampilly in Nairobi and Tim Cocks in Antananarivo; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)