built his dairy products company Tiko into a business empire before being elected mayor of Tana in 1999. He was credited with cleaning up the capital, repairing roads, installing street lights, and putting more police on the streets. The city experienced a building boom, with new offices and supermarkets opening. The youthful Ravalomanana made much of his devout Protestant faith, and his TIM (I Love Madagascar) party ran a slick, media-savvy campaign. His TV and radio stations bolstered his candidacy, and his face was everywhere—on T-shirts, bags, and baseball caps. He favored economic links with the United States and South Africa, rather than France, and printed English-language slogans on Tiko’s bottles of milk and mineral water. He was a Merina, popular in Tana and the central highlands. Ratsiraka was a métis (mixed race) with Merina and Betsimisaraka lineage, so he had support across ethnic lines; however, his power base was in the port of Toamasina on the east coast, and much of his support came from the côtiers of African or mixed descent.
Officially, neither candidate gained an absolute majority in the election. Ravalomanana claimed the count was rigged and crowds in Tana turned out to proclaim him president. Ratsiraka denied election shenanigans and called for a constitutionally mandated runoff. For the next six months, Madagascar had two presidents, two prime ministers, two parliaments, and even two central banks. The economy went into freefall. The banks could not extend credit, and businesses could not repay debts; textile factories closed, tourists canceled vacations, and investors fled. Donors could not dispense aid because they did not know which government was in charge.
Ravalomanana’s government controlled Tana and the central highlands; Ratsiraka, backed by five of the six provincial governors and military top brass, set up a rival capital in Toamasina and controlled most coastal regions. His supporters built barricades and blew up bridges along RN2, the main road from the coast to the capital, halting supplies of food, fuel, and other goods. The Economist reported in May 2002 that at Brickaville, where RN2 turns west toward the highlands, “the country’s main commercial route is reduced to a narrow concrete path. . . . Men totter over it in single file under sacks of cement, crates of tinned food and baskets of chickens. Others wade across the river, pushing barrels of smuggled petrol. . . . Brickaville is becoming a border town, and a rough one at that.”9
The military eventually threw its support behind Ravalomanana, and in April 2002 the High Constitutional Court declared him the outright winner. TIM won a convincing victory in elections for the National Assembly. Ratsiraka was forced to admit defeat and return to exile in France. Ravalomanana embarked on a business-friendly reform agenda, providing tax breaks for foreign investors. The government improved roads, schools, and hospitals and fought corruption. Textile factories opened in tax-exempt free zones, and multinational companies started exploiting mineral resources. And the president hired Luke as his speechwriter and communication adviser.
Ravalomanana easily won a second term in 2006 but faced opposition when he proposed constitutional amendments that increased the power of the presidency and allowed him to stand for two more terms. The changes were narrowly approved in a referendum. Although the economy continued to grow, food prices rose, and opposition mounted to the free rein given to foreign investors. In July 2008, Ravalomanana signed an agreement with the South Korean conglomerate Daewoo for a ninety-nine-year lease of half of the island’s arable land to grow grain. South Korea, with a growing population and limited land and water resources, certainly needed the grain, but the decision was both legally and morally dodgy. The prospect of selling off ancestral land to foreigners horrified many people. What was to happen to the subsistence farmers who had used the land for centuries to grow rice and herd zebu? Would villages be moved from ancestral lands? Would Daewoo bulldoze family tombs to clear land for planting? This time, Ravalomanana had gone too far.
Richard, who had taken part in the popular uprisings against Ratsiraka in 1991 and 2001, was back on the streets in January 2009 to call for the resignation of Ravalomanana, the leader he had previously supported. For months, the president was locked in a power struggle with the young mayor of Tana, Andry Rajoelina, a former disc jockey, whose party had swept local elections. A week of rioting, looting, and burning in the capital left up to one hundred dead.
Ravalomanana’s ascent to the presidency had reduced French influence. The Anglo-leaning president actively sought commercial and political ties with the United States and promoted the English language as a way for Madagascar to compete in the global economy. With the discovery of offshore oil deposits in the Mozambique Channel, France claimed drilling rights around two of the Îles Éparses (Scattered Islands), small coral islands that were French territories and had no permanent population. Ravalomanana claimed the islands for Madagascar. His diplomatic saber rattling worried the French, who decided to support his rival and provided Rajoelina with refuge in their embassy. The public mood changed when the presidential guard opened fire outside the palace, killing twenty-eight protesters and injuring more than two hundred. The government lost control of the army and police force, and tanks moved into the capital. On March 17, a few hours after declaring he would fight to the death rather than resign, Ravalomanana stepped down, transferring power to a trio of loyal military leaders. A few hours later, the trio were arrested and handed over power to Rajoelina. Ravalomanana fled to Swaziland, then South Africa. He was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment on charges relating to the shooting of protestors outside the palace. The coup was roundly condemned by the international community, including the African Union (AU), but the AU was not ready to take on Madagascar’s large and well-trained army. Rajoelina was effectively left in power, with international bodies accepting his promise to call early elections.
Promises, promises. From March 2009 Rajoelina promised—and then postponed—elections every year until 2013. Meanwhile, the economy tanked; most foreign aid, which had accounted for 40 percent of the budget, was suspended; licenses for mining projects were revoked, and foreign investors were scared away. In polls, two-thirds of Malagasy described their financial situation as bad or very bad, compared with one-third before the coup. The main stumbling block to an election was the conflict over who could run. Eventually, a deal was brokered that barred both Rajoelina and Ravalomanana, but each endorsed a proxy candidate. In October, the proxies—former finance minister Hery Rajaonarimampianina for Rajoelina and former health minister Jean Louis Robinson for Ravalomanana—fended off thirty-one other candidates to go into a December runoff. Rajaonarimampianina was the eventual winner. The donors returned, followed, somewhat nervously, by the mining companies and other foreign investors.
Richard holds France partly responsible for Madagascar’s political instability and lack of economic progress. “When British colonies became independent, Britain did not meddle in their affairs and they were left free to develop,” he said. By contrast, through a policy sometimes dubbed Françafrique, France continues to intervene, militarily, politically, and economically, in its former colonies. “France wants our president to be on its side for political and economic reasons—for the oil of the Mozambique Channel, for mineral resources. French financial interests are still strong. All actions by our government are taken in support of France. It’s neocolonialism.”
Over his career, Richard has served in government for more than a decade, under three presidents—Zafy, Ratsiraka, and Rajoelina. Yet he also joined the street protests that led to the overthrow of three presidents—in 1991, 2001, and 2009. Like his dual roles as college professor and traditional healer, he sees no contradiction between his political positions. Yet he despairs of lasting change. “Since independence, Madagascar has had four republics. Each time we change the republic, we change the constitution. Each party, each faction rewrites the constitution to meet its needs.” He shrugged. “We’re always having referendums. It’s very tiring.”
four
On and Off the Road in Madagascar
Not-So-Wild Madagascar
UNICEF had booked a resort hotel in a national park east of Tana for a weeklong workshop to launch the research project. Away from the noise and bustle of the capital, free from classes and meetings, our five-person team and our colleagues from UA could huddle in breakout sessions, share meals, and build personal relationships. In the jungle, mobile phone coverage was patchy and the Internet slow. There wasn’t much to do when the sun went down except sit on the veranda, enjoy