MADAGASCAR: Opposition calls on president to resign in election law dispute

Madagascar’s opposition called on Thursday for the president and prime minister to resign and said it would no longer negotiate in a deepening dispute over new election laws.  Supporters of opposition politician Marc Ravalomanana, who served as president from 2002 until he was toppled in a 2009 coup, say the new laws are intended to […]

Madagascar’s opposition called on Thursday for the president and prime minister to resign and said it would no longer negotiate in a deepening dispute over new election laws. 

Supporters of opposition politician Marc Ravalomanana, who served as president from 2002 until he was toppled in a 2009 coup, say the new laws are intended to block him from running in a vote due later this year on an as-yet-unannounced date. The opposition has been holding daily demonstrations. On Saturday, police fired teargas at an opposition march at which two people were killed. 

“We have done enough. We have sufficiently warned. But nobody listened to us. That’s why the situation has come to where it is. We will no longer discuss electoral laws,” Hanitra Razafimanantsoa, Vice-President of the National Assembly and Member of the opposition Tiako I Madagasikara (TIM) Party, told a protest march on Thursday. 

“Since we left the National Assembly, it is no longer just a question of electoral laws. We demand the resignation of the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the Government.”