Too Many Coups
The nationalist leader Philibert Tsiranana, a côtier, became the country’s first president in 1960, but postindependence euphoria soon evaporated as the country struggled with debt and a poor economy. In 1972, popular protests forced Tsiranana to hand over power to the army commander, General Gabriel Ramanantsoa. Political turmoil continued, and in 1975, after surviving several coup attempts, Ramanantsoa stepped down. His successor was assassinated within a week of taking office, and another coup brought Admiral Didier Ratsiraka to power. He weakened relations with France and aligned Madagascar with the Soviet Union.
Although paying lip service to socialist principles, Ratsiraka sought to impose a revolution from above. Madagascar even had its own “Red Book” (Boky Mena) to guide the actions of the five pillars of the revolution: the Supreme Revolutionary Council, peasants and workers, young intellectuals, women, and the Popular Armed Forces. The Red Book advocated a foreign policy of nonalignment, with domestic policies focused on economic development through rigorous planning. Political parties were suppressed, and strict censorship enforced. Because of its situation on the Mozambique Channel—a major shipping route for oil and other commodities—Madagascar became a key proxy in Cold War geopolitics. Although the government had nationalized some French companies, France maintained a large embassy and a major aid program. When Malcolm McBain arrived as UK ambassador in 1984, he found a “considerable diplomatic presence.”
It was also important to the Russians. [They] had a large embassy. There were about forty diplomatic missions, resident missions in Madagascar, plus numerous non-resident missions and a large European delegation. . . . The Communist Chinese were running an aid programme, and rebuilt the key road linking the capital with the main port. The Japanese were there, with some valuable aid. Also represented by embassies were the North Koreans, the Libyans, the Indians, the Indonesians, the Cubans and the Vietnamese. The African National Congress had a representative there, the Egyptians, the Yugoslavs, the East Germans, of course.8
The Soviet Union deployed thousands of technical staff and advisers—on everything from aviation and the military to sports. Russian was introduced to the secondary school curriculum; the best students went on to study in Moscow and Leningrad. North Korea built Ratsiraka a new concrete presidential palace, modeled on the rova, outside the city. However, life for most Malagasy did not improve.
“The state controlled everything, all the wealth,” said Richard. “The only jobs were with the government, and you needed connections.” The French colonists had been replaced by a new group of homegrown oppressors. When Ratsiraka came to power, Richard was studying at UA, working at night in a gargotte (a roadside restaurant) to support himself. He joined the Proletarian Party and took part in student antigovernment protests. “We were reading Che Guevara, and running around at night, plastering posters on walls,” he recalled. “We were always running away, and in danger of being shot by the security forces. It was a great adventure.”
With Ratsiraka in power, most French faculty left the university, to be replaced by Soviet professors. “They brought with them lots of books on scientific communism,” said Richard. “They were serious about their mission and taught all subjects using Marxist-Leninist principles, but the students didn’t read most of the books. Fortunately, the students were exposed to two perspectives because the Malagasy professors stayed.”
Strikes and student protests continued as economic conditions worsened. In 1979, when Richard’s first child was born, almost everything—food, milk, medicines, soap—was in short supply. “You needed to belong to the cooperative of the revolutionary party to have coupons for supplies,” he said. “There were always shortages, but we were told we needed to make sacrifices to reach the socialist paradise.”
In 1989, Ratsiraka was returned for a third seven-year term in what many regarded as a rigged election. For the next four years, the country was paralyzed by general strikes and riots. In 1993, opposition candidate Albert Zafy defeated Ratsiraka, ending his seventeen years in power and sending him into exile in France. Three years later, Zafy was impeached by the parliament. To the surprise of the international community, and many Malagasy, Ratsiraka returned to win the 1996 election.
With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ratsiraka abandoned the socialist experiment, imposed neoliberal reforms, and restored diplomatic and economic ties with France. The economy improved, with a boom in tourism and textile exports to the United States; from 1997 to 2001, foreign direct investment grew tenfold, and in 2001, the economy grew by 6.7 percent, one of the best performers in Africa.
Two Presidents, Two Capitals
Ratsiraka’s opponent in the December 2001 election represented a radically new direction. Marc Ravalomanana, the so-called yogurt king, had built his dairy products company Tiko into a business empire before being elected mayor of Tana in 1999. He was credited with cleaning up the capital, repairing roads, installing street lights, and putting more police on the streets. The city experienced a building boom, with new offices and supermarkets opening. The youthful Ravalomanana made much of his devout Protestant faith, and his TIM (I Love Madagascar) party ran a slick, media-savvy campaign. His TV and radio stations bolstered his candidacy, and his face was everywhere—on T-shirts, bags, and baseball caps. He favored economic links with the United States and South Africa, rather than France, and printed English-language slogans on Tiko’s bottles of milk and mineral water. He was a Merina, popular in Tana and the central highlands. Ratsiraka was a métis (mixed race) with Merina and Betsimisaraka lineage, so he had support across ethnic lines; however, his power base was in the port of Toamasina on the east coast, and much of his support came from the côtiers of African or mixed descent.
Officially, neither candidate gained an absolute majority in the election. Ravalomanana claimed the count was rigged and crowds in Tana turned out to proclaim him president. Ratsiraka denied election shenanigans and called for a constitutionally mandated runoff. For the next six months, Madagascar had two presidents, two prime ministers, two parliaments, and even two central banks. The economy went into freefall. The banks could not extend credit, and businesses could not repay debts; textile factories closed, tourists canceled vacations, and investors fled. Donors could not dispense aid because they did not know which government was in charge.
Ravalomanana’s government controlled Tana and the central highlands; Ratsiraka, backed by five of the six provincial governors and military top brass, set up a rival capital in Toamasina and controlled most coastal regions. His supporters built barricades and blew up bridges along RN2, the main road from the coast to the capital, halting supplies of food, fuel, and other goods. The Economist reported in May 2002 that at Brickaville, where RN2 turns west toward the highlands, “the country’s main commercial route is reduced to a narrow concrete path. . . . Men totter over it in single file under sacks of cement, crates of tinned food and baskets of chickens. Others wade across the river, pushing barrels of smuggled petrol. . . . Brickaville is becoming a border town, and a rough one at that.”9
The military eventually threw its support behind Ravalomanana, and in April 2002 the High Constitutional Court declared him the outright winner. TIM won a convincing victory in elections for the National Assembly. Ratsiraka was forced to admit defeat and return to exile in France. Ravalomanana embarked on a business-friendly reform agenda, providing tax breaks for foreign investors. The government improved roads, schools, and hospitals and fought corruption. Textile factories opened in tax-exempt free zones, and multinational companies started exploiting mineral resources. And the president hired Luke as his speechwriter and communication adviser.
Ravalomanana easily won a second term in 2006 but faced opposition when he proposed constitutional amendments that increased the power of the presidency and allowed him to stand for two more terms. The changes were narrowly approved in a referendum. Although the economy continued to grow, food prices rose, and opposition mounted to the free
