African Union sanctions Madagascar for failing to implement post-coup power-sharing deal

AU sanctions Madagascar 1 year after coup

ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — The African Union imposed sanctions Wednesday on Madagascar after the former disc jockey who seized power on the Indian Ocean island failed to implement a power-sharing deal prompted by last year’s coup.

The Ethiopia-based AU said at least 109 people are targeted by the sanctions, including Andry Rajoelina and those who helped him seize power one year ago. The sanctions imposed Wednesday include visa restrictions, freezing of bank accounts and diplomatic isolation.

Rajoelina, who took power in March with the military’s backing, failed to meet a Tuesday deadline for submitting to agreements sponsored by international mediators to create a transitional coalition.

“If there are sanctions, it is the people of Madagascar who will be hurt by them,” Rajoelina said earlier Wednesday in the southeast of the country where he was visiting areas hit by Tropical Storm Hubert.

Rajoelina has repeatedly taken defiant steps since coming to power last March in what African governments called a coup. The AU already had condemned Rajoelina and suspended Madagascar until it has a government elected through fair and transparent elections.

“I hope that these sanctions will have the effect of nurturing wisdom and realism and that the solutions of the problems of Madagascar have to be based on consensus,” said Ramtane Lamamra, AU’s commissioner for Peace and Security. “No unilateral action or unilateral party is likely to solve the problems of Madagascar by itself.”

Rajoelina first gained fame in his homeland as a disc jockey and then was elected mayor of Madagascar’s capital. He later led a campaign of street protests that culminated with the ouster of elected President Marc Ravalomanana. Rajoelina was 34 at the time, six years too young to be president according to the country’s constitution.

Lamamra said the sanctions were delayed because Madagascar’s leaders initially had agreed to participate in mediation talks.

Ravalomanana’s rags-to-riches tale — he started out selling ice cream from a bicycle — was once a source of popularity. But Rajoelina, tapping into the deep dissatisfaction of Madagascar’s impoverished majority, portrayed Ravalomanana as interested mostly in enriching himself and out of touch with the suffering of ordinary people.

Rajoelina, however, comes from the wealthy minority that has had a stranglehold on Madagascar’s politics.