Election mischief in Madagascar

A contested election

In so far as anything is clear in Madagascar, the struggle is between supporters of Admiral Didier Ratsiraka, the Malagasy (adjective for Madagascar, pronounced 'Malagash') strong man who has been running the island since at least 1975 when he was appointed leader of the Supreme Council of the Revolution, and Marc Ravalomanana, the leader of the Forces Vides opposition. Ratsiraka was ousted by Albert Zafy from the presidency from 1991 to 1996 but returned in 1997 with his party Action de Renouveau de Madagascar (A.R.E.M.A.). Madagascar's constitution stipulates that the President should remain in power for five years, but when the first leg of the election was held in December 2001, Ratsiraka refused to accept the decision in favour of his opponent Ravalomanana on the grounds that the recount had been rigged against him. The new president moved in, but Ratsiraka and his supporters established road-blocks around the capital, blew up a number of bridges and paralysed the island's infrastructure. The new minister for defence, General Jules Mamizara, has threatened that unless the rebellious soldiers return to their barracks they will be treated as mutineers, but Ratsiraka is unlikely to be impressed by such histrionics Ð he has been through such dramas often enough in the past. There has been no indication so far that Osama bin Laden, Al-Qa'ida or the Taliban are involved in this unseemly kerfuffle.

Meanwhile, the second leg of the election has been postponed and the legislature has been prorogued. American and French nationals have been advised not to visit the country, and the tourist trade has been ruined, for this year at least. In fact, the republic is grinding to a halt.

Extreme poverty

The real problem is the economic one. Madagascar is a very poor island, almost entirely reliant on tourism to keep its head above water. The economy is based on agriculture, which employs an estimated 80 percent of the workforce. Rice, cassava, sugarcane and sweet potatoes are produced, but the island, and its agriculture, are still recovering from the effects of three cyclones which hit them in 2000, resulting in flooding and the destruction of the rice crop. The island has a GDP of £150 per year, an illiteracy rate of over 50 percent and life expectancy well below 50. The Salesians, who run missions in the country, estimate that in the months since the first leg of the elections, 8,000 people, of whom 7,500 are children, have died through hunger and disease. They deplore the ex-president's illegal actions, which are leading to the isolation and division of regions of the country, sowing fear and terror among the people. They report that the island is reduced to subsistence level, with no fuel, food and medicines. They ask how it is possible that in the 21

A short history

Madagascar, 'the great red island', a territory roughly the size of France with only 15 million inhabitants, was probably first inhabited by Malayan-Polynesian people, olive-skinned and straight-haired, seeping down through the Indian Ocean in the fifth century A.D. or thereabouts. The Portuguese were the first to establish trading posts, which were later turned into colonies, and missionaries were sent by the London Missionary Society (L.M.S.) and other mainly Protestant bodies in the course of the nineteenth century. The Merina tribes were predominant, and from them a ruling oligarchy emerged and spread their influence throughout the island.

King Radama II strengthened ties with the missionaries from the L.M.S., who reported that the greatest sins they (the Malagasy) are guilty of are adultery and fornication. Even many years later, the L.M.S. reported that the education of Malagasy girls aged 12 was often interrupted by pregnancy. But it was not until 1869 that any member of the royal family was converted to Christianity, when Queen Ranavalona II and her prime minster-cum-lover were baptised and married in Church.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the French arrived and established Madagascar as a colony, not a popular one owing to the two most powerful Malagasy generals, Tazo (fever) and Hazo (forest). The tribes were often turbulent, and the jungle impenetrable, but gradually the missionaries, including the Nonconformist L.M.S., the French Jesuits, the Quakers and the Norwegian Lutherans, began to establish missions on the coasts where the dreaded Malagasy fever (cerebral malaria) was least prevalent. In 1896, the French took over.

During the Second World War, Madagascar was occupied by British troops after an invasion through the northern harbour of Diego Suarez (now Antserana) and when France tried to re-impose its rule in 1947, serious rebellion took place. This led to an attempt to take over the whole island by Antananarivo-based dissidents. The French brought in the Foreign Legion and Senegalese soldiery to deal with the uprising, which was put down with frightful bloodshed - an estimated 60-80,000 Malagasy were killed in return for the rebel killing of the Senegalese soldiers.

In 1960, the French handed over sovereignty, independence was declared, and power was transferred to the Malagasy leaders with minimum fuss, while the Merina Queen Ranavalona III was carried into exile on a litter with an escort of the hated Senegalese troops.

Christianity predominant

It is estimated that Roman Catholicism is probably the most popular religion in Madagascar, followed closely by Protestantism. Traditional religions, including many forms of animism, voodoo, juju, ancestor-worship and witchcraft, have a strong hold on the people, particularly in the interior. Other religions include Islam, particularly on the north-west coast, where there are believed to be groups of Sunni numbering up to 250,000. There are also about 10,000 Hindus and a few hundred Jews.

There was a notable movement of Malagasy people into the Christian churches in the last years of the nineteenth century, possibly as a result of Queen Ranavalona II's conversion, but this flattened out at the end of the century as a result of the anti-clerical policies of the French government at that time. As to the Protestants, the L.M.S., which arrived on the island in 1818, had enormous initial success. By 1836, 30,000 people had learned to read, and the society had completed its translation of the Bible into Malagasy. These efforts were interrupted by the expulsion of the L.M.S. in 1836 at the behest of Queen Ranavalona I, who hated Christianity, and they were not allowed back until after her successor acceded to the throne in 1861, and was received into the Church with her husband. Protestants in Madagascar now operate more than 800 primary schools and nearly 300 secondary.

The state and religion

Since the end of the persecutions in 1861, freedom of religion and worship has been recognised in the island. Under the constitution of 1962, the following practices apply:

- the state provides no salaries or subsidies to any religion;

- it is not necessary to secure authorisation for holding religious meetings in public or private;

- religious associations can be formed when the number of people regularly attending private religious services reaches 100:

- a religious association can integrate with a recognised church if the majority of its members so desire;

- several religious associations can get together to form a church to which the ministry of interior can give recognition.

In short, the Malagasy government's attitude towards religion is both sensible and relaxed.

Madagascar is a treasure-house of rare animal and plant species numbering over 200,000, three-quarters of them unknown elsewhere in the world, while its waters are home to the coelocanth fish, reputed to be many millions of years old. The lemur, an endangered primate, is found there, and there are said to be a thousand varieties of orchid, and a thousand types of chameleon. In the interior especially, rural life has hardly changed for centuries, with herdsmen living in wooden huts built with their own hands, their garments woven and their food grown at home. Diet is based on rice, but in winter months in the country, they are forced to exist on tubers, maize and wild grains. Most experience hunger in the winter, and famine if the harvest fails.

Malagasy people have a natural dignity and charm, Dervla Murphy says, founded on good manners and spontaneous amiability. There are serious fears that if Ratsiraka succeeds in overturning the election results, he will again subject this sensitive and friendly people to the harsh rule that he applied in his so-called Third Republic. The constitution protects human rights, but in the past, Ratsiraka has used his gangs of thugs to coerce and bully the people on an increasing scale. Legal safeguards against arrest and detention are insufficient, and detention before trial can last up to four years. The prisons are bywords for filth and cruelty.

As Dervla Murphy says in Muddling through in Madagascar, the Malagasy have their own set of priorities, By our standards, their country is falling to bits. Yet if they can avoid being blackmailed, bullied or otherwise lured into alliance with major power blocs, the Great Red Island may still be in harmony with its ancestral spirits as it enters the twenty-first century. To them, this harmony is what matters most of all.