L’Express de Madagascar is providing the provisional results of the constitutional referendum that took place last Thursday. The vote was held to approve the country’s new constitution. (The text in French is available in a previous post here.) The constitution is semi-presidential.

These are the results that have been provided:

Registered voters : 6,945,497
Voting : 3,671,043
Turnout: 52.86 %
Spoiled and blank : 177,620
Valid votes cast : 3,493,423
Yes : 2 585 215 (74.00 %)
No : 908 208 (26.00 %)

So, the approval of the constitution was not overwhelming. The turnout was low and there was an opposition vote. L’Express de Madagascar provides regional figures, which show that in one region there was a ‘No’ majority.

On the day of the vote a section of the military declared that they were taking power. There was little, if any, popular support for the rebellion, which lasted a couple of days before it was put down by loyal officers. Generally, though, the situation is still very unstable and consensus has not been achieved.

Still, Madagascar has formally returned to semi-presidentialism.