A New Era?: How Madagascar Keeps Cycling Through the Same Leaders

The image depicts debris in the streets of Madagascar’s capital Antananarivo in the midst of the protests. Military personnel are arriving on motorcycle, signifying the military’s intervention in the protests. On September 25, 2025, a curfew was established, with the military converting streets like these into roadblock checkpoints.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons 

On October 12, members of the elite Madagascar Armed Forces unit, le Corps d’Armée des Personnels et des Services Administratifs et Techniques (CAPSAT), deposed President Andry Rajoelina. This was the end result of weeks of protests. These demonstrations, part of the broader trend of Gen Z protests throughout the world, were the result of systemic failings from years of government incompetence and mismanagement resulting in massive poverty and inequality. The roots of the problem, though, stem back decades, if not to the beginning of French colonial rule centuries prior.

Colonial Past

The underlying conditions of poverty date back to the beginning of French colonialism. France began its invasion of the island in 1883, in what became the Franco-Hova Wars. The country  ultimately overthrew the indigenous Merina monarchy in 1897, establishing a colonial government. 

The new regime imposed by Paris began plundering the island’s natural resources, using their corporations and military to seize crops, deforest the island and extract other natural resources. Following this, the leaders transferred them to private companies owned by local oligarchs aligned with the French government. To this day, the wealth from Madagascar’s natural resources is concentrated in the heads of such corporations. 

Most Malagasy chiefs had their land seized, except for those who pledged loyalty to the new regime. These locals were forced to work the land in a system that combined elements of the serfdom from France’s historically employed feudal system and the Merina Kingdom’s caste system, specifically by weaponizing the class disparities already present on the island. They made the Andevos, the lowest rung of the system who served as the slave underclass, toil for the corporations. The French also began to burn the island’s forests en masse, both to create fields for new farming and to further the timber trade. 

Nationalist sentiment grew in these early years due to the vocally pro-independence Protestant clergy, led by Pastor Ravelojoana, and the formation of nationalist secret societies, like Vy Vato Sakelika. The latter created leaflets promoting Malagasy identity and distributed them to the Hova, while the clergy were the more public faces of independence. These efforts resulted in a clergy-led revolt in 1904, where rebels looted and burned buildings before being executed by French authorities. While short-lived, this revolt created the roots for national consciousness among the Malagasy people.

After World War II, anti-colonial movements sprouted up globally among the subjects of dying empires. The newfound anti-imperialist sentiment, brought about by the defeat of the Axis powers, made these empires reluctant to retain their colonial possessions. In Madagascar, a nationalist rebellion rose up again in 1947, but was brutally repressed by the French military. The writing was on the wall, however, and Madagascar, along with several other new African nations, was granted autonomy in 1958 (in the form of self-government with a President and National Assembly) before receiving independence from France two years later. 

Malagasy Revolutions of the Past

The new nation’s first president was Philibert Tsiranana. He was heavily supported by the French government and generally deferential to the island’s former colonial master. His “neo-colonial” foreign policy involved allowing French corporations unhindered access to the cash crops on the island and pegging the ariary, also known as the Malagasy franc, to France’s franc, thereby making their economy subject to the whims of France’s. Civil discontent with his rule brought about the Rotaka, a massive series of protests from farmers and students in 1972. 

Madagascar’s subsequent leader Didier Ratsiraka nationalized the holdings under French control in an effort to remove French influence over the island. This had been prescribed by the Soviet Union (USSR) in exchange for financial aid, and Ratsiraka, wanting to cut off any lingering French influence, accepted them as the new imperial influence of the country. Since he came to power through socialist-coded rhetoric against economic elites, an alliance with the USSR cemented this image. While resources were no longer under corporate control, the government took over the mass embezzlement of wealth, further perpetuating the entrenched inequality. Despite the island’s natural resources, the population continued to live in poverty while those in power benefited from the wealth. After a few years, Ratsiraka rejected the pretense of left-leaning policy after Soviet aid began to dry up, instead embracing free-market reforms proposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This further exacerbated inequality and returned corporate control to the island.

Ratsiraka later lost his 2001 reelection bid to Marc Ravalomanana, whose rise and fall proved pivotal to the current conditions in Madagascar. His stringently pro-business agenda resulted in corporations, including one owned by him, engaging in a massive deforestation effort. He also facilitated a black market for vanilla that turned it into a $600 per kg. cash crop. Suddenly, criminal enterprises began to steal vanilla crops throughout the nation and sell them internationally, thereby enriching gangs at the expense of vanilla farmers. In 2009, Ravalomanana attempted to lease 1.3 million hectares — nearly half of the arable land on the island — to South Korean car company Daewoo. In response, Andry Rajoelina, mayor of the capital Antananarivo, led massive protests against the Ravalomanana government. These protests were often brutally suppressed by the army. Eventually, the military turned on Ravalomanana, ousting him and making Rajoelina the new president.

In many ways, Rajoelina parallels not just Marc Ravalomanana, but also Philibert Tsiranana and Didier Ratsiraka. He continued to promote the corporate oligarchic control that had historically dominated the nation, particularly over natural resources, while three-quarters of Malagasy live in poverty. The primary motivation for the recent protests was the stark difference between the general public and those in power, whom Rajoelina had once staunchly criticized but now represented. For instance, while blackouts are ubiquitous throughout the country, Rajoelina made constructing a cable car the nation’s top infrastructure priority. Further, although tuition increases made university education an impossibility for much of the population, Rajoelina sent his children to school in France and Switzerland. Much like the rulers of old, the interests of corporations and colonizer nations were given priority over those of the wider Malagasy body politic.

The Present Situation

The recent Gen Z protests have supported the military, who often protected citizens from other government forces. CAPSAT had previously intervened on behalf of Rajoelina when he ousted Ravalomanana in 2009, and in both cases this was where the tide turned in favor of the protesters. Soon thereafter, CAPSAT mutinied, taking full control of the military. First Rajoelina was forced to sack his prime minister Christian Ntsay and, subsequently, to appoint his Military Chief of Staff Ruphin Zafisambo to the position. 

This apparent truce, though, was short lived, as Rajoelina’s handpicked President of the Senate Richard Ravalomanana was ousted, and the die was cast. While Rajoelina gave a speech claiming he would stand defiant and had nothing to lose, it seems he had nothing Toulouse, as he ended up fleeing to France in a military aircraft. 

Despite Rajoelina’s attempts to dissolve the National Assembly, its members voted to impeach him. Soon after, Colonel Micheal Randrianirina became the new President, and while he promised reform, it is important to look at his background: he attended the Antsirabe Military Academy — where Ratsiraka was also enrolled — during the time Rajoelina first seized power through the military. He would later serve as the governor of the Androy region, where he initially positioned himself as an ally of Rajoelina in the period between his two presidencies. 

Most damning of all, he was the head of CAPSAT at the time of the coup. In other words, Randrianirina was the product of the very same military establishment that had produced Ramanantsoa, Ratsiraka, Ravalomanana and Rajoelina, repeating the cycle of leaders yet again.