Madagascar’s game of thrones
For decades the neutral image of Madagascar’s army was a well-cultivated mirage
The day after Marc Ravalomanana, former president of Madagascar, returned from five years of exile, the army broke down the door to his house in the capital, arrested him and whisked him to an army base in the island’s extreme north. The incident last October was a blunt reminder that the army is still deeply enmeshed in Madagascan politics. “The fact that the army can just sweep in, break down the door and arrest someone, shows how powerful they still are,” said historian Stephen Ellis of the African Studies Centre at Leiden University, in the Netherlands. Juvence Ramasy, a researcher in political science at the University of Tamatave, on Madagascar’s east coast, agrees. “It is high time the military went back to its barracks and left politicians to rule the country,” he said. Mr Ravalomanana had returned ten months after new presidential elections were held in December 2013.
In 2009, after violent protests, the army, mainly lowly officers who were frustrated at their lack of upward mobility, had toppled him. The military replaced him with the then mayor of Antananarivo, Andry Rajoelina, a former disc jockey. Until then, the island’s post-independence army had carefully cultivated an image of neutrality. But this picture is a delusion because more military officers than civilians have served as president since independence, according to a May 2014 report by the International Crisis Group (ICG), a think-tank based in Brussels. In addition, the military has been behind several successful coups and even more failed attempts. Since its establishment at independence in 1960, Madagascar’s army has neither needed to defend the country nor to keep the peace between warring domestic factions. In any case, it would not have succeeded because the army has too many generals and lacks experience, equipment and personnel.
Madagascar has just 12,500 regular troops, according to a June 2014 World Bank-funded study. These forces are “ill-equipped and underpaid”, according to defenceWeb, a security news portal. During the most recent presidential election, the army remained neutral and kept a safe distance from polling stations. But in his last days as president, Mr Rajoelina promoted a slate of loyal officers as an insurance policy in case his proxy candidate for president, Hery Rajaonarimampianina, sidelined him, according to the ICG report. Mr Rajaonarimampianina won the election and acted exactly as Mr Rajoelina had feared. At his first cabinet meeting on January 29th 2014, he abolished the hated Special Intervention Force (known by its French initials FIS), a military unit Mr Rajoelina had created as a political instrument of intimidation. He also disbanded the Homeland Security Division (DST), a political police squad. When Mr Rajoelina was not named prime minister, as had been widely expected, he complained on television that “Hery” had failed to call him.
Despite the new president’s promising signs of independence, the army’s neutrality is still not clear. It has been deeply involved in politics since 1972, when Philibert Tsiranana, the French-appointed president, handed power to a military council after unrest ended his reign. The military appointed Lieutenant-Commander Didier Ratsiraka president three years later, in 1975. “This public image of neutrality shows how much skill…the army has for operating behind the scenes,” Mr Ellis said. “Mr Ratsiraka made a point of not showing up in public in a military uniform. He preferred a Pierre Cardin suit and a silk tie.” Mr Ratsiraka renamed, enlarged and reorganised the nation’s security troops— Forces Armées Malagasy— to make them appropriate for a “socialist revolutionary” state. Between 1975 and 1980, the newly renamed Forces Armées Populaires (FAP) increased in size from 4,700 to 6,300 ordinary troops, according to political scientist Jaona Rabenirainy, writing in Politique Africaine, a journal, in June 2002.
While an impressive list of army generals have held important political posts since then—including as ministers of defence, foreign affairs and strategically important fisheries—they have always ruled together with civilians. The military brass has only put its foot down when politicians made a mess of it. When Mr Ratsiraka bankrupted the country and refused to step down in 1991, the army issued an ultimatum that led to a transitional government with Mr Ratsiraka stripped of nearly all his powers. Mr Ravalomanana, first elected in 2002, partly blames himself for his ousting by the military. “That was the mistake: we spent too much money on health and education, and not enough on the army,” he told Radio France Internationale on May 14th 2009, several months after the coup. Mr Ravalomanana had tried to make the army focus on the unglamorous work of preventing chronic cattle theft in rural areas. He also sent several generals into early retirement and—unforgivably—named a civilian as defence minister in 2007.
“Ravalomanana was not a skilled politician,” Mr Ellis said. “He openly disrespected the army and humiliated its leaders.” In contrast, the military got whatever it wanted from Mr Rajoelina’s regime: salary raises, deferred retirement, new equipment, including helicopters from Belgium, tax exemptions, and posts in government and corporations, according to the World Bank-funded study. Now the new president will need to reform the military that stands poised to oppose him if he missteps. One of the army’s main problems is its top-heavy structure. Its 150 generals would be a suitable number for an army of 400,000 troops, according to the World Bank-funded report. However, Madagascar’s generals command just over 12,500 soldiers. Unlike Mr Rajoelina’s last-minute promotions, career advancement for military officers should be shielded from political manipulation, the ICG recommends. In addition, the army should be professional, and declare its unequivocal commitment to the constitution and the principle of civilian oversight over its actions.
As international aid returns to Madagascar following the last election, the ICG report asks donors to make sure: “support will be taken away and the country will return to international isolation if the military intervenes again.” The international community’s role is limited, Mr Ellis warned. “Madagascar is now ruled by an elite supported by the army,” he said. “This group of people is not interested in democracy as we know it. They are only interested in that part of the population that has capital or lives in the cities. There is very little the international community can do.” Only people can force a change, Mr Ellis said: “The party that manages to fill the streets with people in Antananarivo means trouble for the sitting president.”
