Désolé, cet article est seulement disponible en English.
Madagascar’s head of state Michael Randrianirina has dismissed the country’s government.
A statement delivered on Tuesday 10th March 2026 by the Malagasy presidential office’s director of communication, Harry Laurent Rahajason, said:
‘The government has ceased its functions. The President will shortly proceed with the appointment of a new Prime Minister, following the procedures set out by the constitution.’
No explanation has been given for the dismissal.
Randrianirina has been Madagascar’s president since October 2025, when as head of the CAPSAT Malagasy army unit, he led the Malagasy military to support nationwide protests against the country’s then PM Andriy Rajoelina.
Those protests had begun in September 2025, caused by anger at general poverty, as well as electricity and water supply problems across the country. They had begun with young Malagasy people, under the name Gen Z Madagascar, but soon extended to all parts of society.
Police and parts of the Malagasy military had confronted protestors and Randrianirina publicly announced he was ordering soldiers under his command to protect the protestors and ‘not obey illegal orders’ strongly implying that Rajoelina and/or his staff were ordering attacks against the protestors.
Randrianirina promised on his appointment as president to appoint a civilian government, and to hold full elections within 18 months to two years.
He appointed the government, with businessman Herintsalama Rajaonarivelo as its Prime Minister, in late October 2025, against the wishes of the Gen Z movement, which said the appointment was ‘non-transparent’ and citing Rajaonarivelo’s ‘connections to the previous {Rajoelina’s} government’.
In February 2026, ‘Gen Z’ and ‘Gen Y Madagascar’ issued a joint call for Randrianirina to resign his position as a result of his failure – according to them – to improve the situation for Malagasy people.
It is not clear whether the dismissal of Rajaonarivelo and the Malagasy government is a direct response to this call.
The Malagasy ‘National Consultation’, which is supposed to ‘drive constitutional reform’ and for the basis of the Malagasy Fifth Republic’, based on input from the entire Malagasy population, starting at the fokotany level, progressing through communes, districts and regions of Madagascar, is scheduled to end on 12th June this year.
But its leader Hanitrianaina Razafimanantsoa, the dissolved government’s state minister, is no longer in post.
English
Malagasy
Cymraeg
