Madagascar Inc.
Kurt Bassuener November 23rd, 2008
A depressing addition to the “democratic breakthroughs gone horribly awry” file, is Madagascar. The country’s President, Marc Ravalomanana, is a dairy and supermarket magnate who first became the capital Antananarivo’s mayor, and then won 2002 elections against longtime ruler Didier Ratsiraka, emerging from an eight-month post-election standoff. He was re-elected in 2006. The country is desperately poor, with over two-thirds of the population living on less than $1 per day.
In a revealing report by Al Jazeera English’s Jane Dutton, it seems that Ravalomanana is treating the country as a wholly-owned subsidiary to his wide business interests (which include much of the media), with citizens pushed off land to make room for his ventures, commercial rivals arrested, and opposition cowed by his dominance. In a megalomaniacal twist, he apparently wants to move the capital some 500km to the east, as he has a poor relationship with the current mayor.
A look at Freedom House’s Freedom in the World Survey gives Madagascar a “Partly Free” rating with a downward trend arrow due to a 2007 referendum which increased the president’s powers and “the consolidation of an economic oligarchy linked to” Ravalomanana.
