Madagascar – Addis Ababa agreement

The transition process in Madagascar looks back on track. Last week, the opposing parties met in Addis Ababa to try to complete the details of the agreement that had been reached in Maputo in August. (See previous post).

In essence, the Maputo distribution of top-level posts has been confirmed. Andry Rajoelina will remain as the head of state and President of the Transition. There will be a three-person presidential council, comprising Rajoelina and two vice-presidents of the transition, one from (presumably now) former President Ravalomanana’s movement and one from former President Zafy’s movement. President Rajoelina’s acts will be counter-signed by the two co-presidents.

There will be 31 ministers in the government with an equal distribution of posts for the three movements plus an equal number of ministers for former President Ratsiraka’s movement and those for ‘other tendencies’. In addition, there will be three broader consultative, legislative organisations, each of which will be headed by one of the three main movements. These organisations will themselves have a similar balance of representatives from the different groups and movements. There are some other organisations too, including legal ones that have a similar balance of power.

The Addis Ababa accord also reiterates the Maputo clause concerning the candidates at the next presidential election. It states that the heads of the movements (i.e. Rajoelina, Ravalomanana etc) reaffirm their commitment to Art. 5 of the Maputo agreement whereby members of the transition government agree not to stand at the presidential election that will be held at the end of the transition process. I may be misinterpreting this part of the accord, but it strikes me that this does not disqualify, even morally, Ravalomanana from standing because he is not a member of the transition government. In theory, however, it does imply that Rajoelina will not be standing. That said, Rajoelina has a ‘get-out-of-jail’ clause in this regard because the Addis Ababa accord also states that if a member of the transition government does decide to stand then he has to resign from his government post 60 days prior to the election.

The text of the agreement is available at the Constitution en Afrique site.

The result is that all parties consider the agreement to be satisfactory, including, seemingly, Ravalomanana who had vehemently opposed Rajoelina staying on as President. A sign that the situation is improving is that Monja Roindefo, the prime minister appointed by Rajoelina after the coup, is arranging to hand over power to the new Prime Minister of the transition, Mangalaza Eugène, in the next couple of days, according to madagascar-tribune.com. That said, Roindefo still seems to harbour a grudge at being evicted from power.

Overall, the chances of a successful transition some time probably late next year do seem to have increased.

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