Loyalists plan Madagascar tax boycott

Supporters of Madagascar’s ousted government plan to launch a tax boycott to ratchet up pressure on the new authorities who seized power in a military-backed takeover last week.

The takeover, led by a 34-year-old former disc jockey, has been widely condemned by western donors on whom the Indian Ocean island is heavily dependent for financial aid. The new administration is also facing mounting street protests by activists demanding the return of Marc Ravalomanana, the toppled president.

“We are not going to pay taxes to this government and the soldiers who looted and pillaged civilians,” Andry Ralijaona, a senior ally of Mr Ravalomanana, told the Financial Times. “Let’s see what they can do without money from the donors and without money from the people.”

Mr Ralijaona, a former Fulbright scholar, ran the main economic development programme in the deposed government. In its last days, as a mutiny mounted, he became its de facto spokesman. Like many other members of the previous administration he is in hiding, saying he fears for his safety.

Mr Ravalomanana himself re-appeared earlier in the day – in Swaziland – for the first time since since he was forced from office a week ago by the military-backed young opposition leader Andry Rajoelina. The former president was holding talks with the King Mswati of Swaziland, who sits on the peace and security council of the Southern African Development Community.

Madagascar has been suspended by both the SADC and African Union, which is also threatening to impose sanctions if constitutional rule is not restored.

A three-month stand-off between the former president and Mr Rajoelina, then the mayor of Antananarivo, the capital, descended into looting and violence that claimed at least 100 lives.

Mr Rajoelina’s investiture as transitional president on Saturday has not quelled that unrest. The second day of an indefinite programme of mass protests by supporters of the old order on Tuesday saw bigger crowds and a more volatile exchange of punches and rocks with Mr Rajoelina’s partisans than the first rally on Monday. The tax boycott is to be unveiled at Wednesday’s demonstration.

As well as a section of the wealthy elite, the young leader is backed by young urban poor who saw scant benefit from the economic expansion under his predecessor.

He capitalised on widespread dissatisfaction with perceived corruption and nepotism under the former president, the conflicts of interests apparent under the rule of the former president, and channelled outrage at talks to lease huge swaths of the island to Daewoo, a South Korean conglomerate. He has vowed to hold elections within two years, combat poverty and attack corruption.

Ranged against him are the many middle-class and professional Malagasy who refuse to accept the removal by force of an elected president only two years from fresh elections.

The power struggle appears far from resolved, with much depending on how united the army is behind the new administration.

Officers among those units that backed the takeover and are now ensconced at army headquarters claimed on Tuesday that they have full support within the military. But analysts say the army is deeply fractured.

Mr Ralijaona, the former president’s senior ally, said he hoped officers not aligned to the new government would “recognise that they are not fulfilling their mission to the nation” rather than falling in with “soldiers behaving like gangsters”.

“We can regain credibility [with donors and investors] if and only if this government is dismantled,” he added.