Return to constitutional order
The first round of Madagascar’s long-awaited presidential election was finally held on October 25, 2013, with more than 30 candidates vying for the presidency. Richard Jean-Louis Robinson, supported by Ravalomanana, and Hery Martial Rakotoarimanana Rajaonarimampianina, seen as an ally of Rajoelina, received the most votes—about 21 percent and 16 percent, respectively—and they advanced to a runoff election held on December 20, 2013. Voting was relatively peaceful, and international observers did not note any significant problems. Provisional results, released in early January 2014, showed that Rajaonarimampianina was the winner, with 53.5 percent of the vote. Even before the results were released, however, Robinson and others voiced allegations of fraud and filed numerous complaints with the electoral court. Later that month the electoral court upheld the provisional results, declaring Rajaonarimampianina the president-elect. He was inaugurated on January 25, 2014. With Rajaonarimampianina’s inauguration signifying a return of constitutional order in Madagascar, the AU and SADC lifted their suspensions of the country in the following days.
Former president Ravalomanana remained in exile for most of the year in South Africa, as amnesty had not been granted for the offenses of which he had been found guilty by a Malagasy court in 2010. Regardless, in October 2014 he returned to the island country, where he was soon detained by the authorities without being charged of any crime. He was allowed to return to his home at the end of the year, although he was under an order of house arrest that was not lifted until May 2015.
Rajaonarimampianina’s popularity with lawmakers dwindled by early 2015, and there was also an apparent split between the president and Rajoelina and his supporters. In late May, Malagasy lawmakers in the National Assembly voted in favour of impeaching Rajaonarimampianina. The legislature’s impeachment request was then subject to being ruled upon by the country’s High Constitutional Court, which in June ruled against it, stating that the request was unfounded.
The return to constitutional order in 2014 led to a resumption of economic aid, and the country’s economy experienced some growth under Rajaonarimampianina. In spite of that, however, the general Malagasy population did not see economic relief, which was a source of tension.
Madagascar’s presidential election was scheduled to be held by the end of 2018. Controversy erupted in April of that year when Rajaonarimampianina was accused of having new electoral laws passed in an attempt to prohibit some likely potential candidates—including former president Ravalomanana—from being able to stand in the presidential election. After two civilians were killed while demonstrating against the new electoral laws, crowds continued to gather to protest against the laws as well as to denounce Rajaonarimampianina and the actions of the security forces toward the protestors, and there were calls for Rajaonarimampianina to resign. The new electoral laws were challenged at the High Constitutional Court, which struck down part of the new laws on May 4; some of the restrictions on candidates put in place by the laws were soon lifted. Later in the month, the High Constitutional Court ordered that a coalition government be established in an effort to end the ongoing political crisis. In June, Rajaonarimampianina named a new prime minister, Christian Ntsay, to head a government of national unity and appointed a new cabinet. Ntsay scheduled the upcoming presidential election for November 7, 2018.
Rajaonarimampianina, as the incumbent running for reelection, stepped down 60 days before the November election, as dictated by Madagascar’s constitution. The president of the Senate, Rivo Rakotovao, an ally of Rajaonarimampianina, became acting president of Madagascar. Rajaonarimampianina was among three dozen contenders for the presidential post, which, as expected, also included Ravalomanana as well as Rajoelina. As none of the candidates in the November 7 election won more than the requisite 50 percent of the vote, the two top vote-getters—Rajoelina, with about 39 percent, and Ravalomanana, with about 35 percent—were set to advance to a runoff scheduled for December. Rajaonarimampianina trailed the two former presidents, winning less than 9 percent of the vote. Provisional results from the December 19, 2018, runoff election showed Rajoelina as the winner, taking more than 55 percent of the vote. Ravalomanana, however, denounced the results as being tainted by electoral problems and filed complaints with the High Constitutional Court, seeking to have the election results cancelled. On January 8, 2019, however, the court upheld the results, having rejected Ravalomanana’s complaints, and Rajoelina was cleared to ascend to the presidency. His inauguration ceremony was held on January 19, 2019.
Controversy erupted in 2023 when there were reports that Rajoelina had held French nationality since 2014, which was problematic: Article 42 of the country’s nationality code indicated that if an adult Malagasy voluntarily acquired a foreign nationality, they would lose their Malagasy nationality, and Article 46 of Madagascar’s 2010 constitution stated that a candidate for the presidency must be of Malagasy nationality. The opposition attempted to have Rajoelina disqualified from being able to continue to serve as president, but the High Constitutional Court dismissed their challenges and also approved Rajoelina’s candidacy for the next presidential election.
On September 6, 2023, Rajoelina officially announced what had already been widely signaled and presumed: he would be a candidate in the upcoming November presidential election. After the High Constitutional Court confirmed his eligibility, and in accordance with the constitution, he stepped down as president on September 9 in order to run for reelection. Under the constitution, the Senate president, Herimanana Razafimahefa, was supposed to assume the role of acting president, but he declined, and Prime Minister Christian Ntsay, a Rajoelina ally, assumed the role. The transfer of power was criticized by the opposition as an institutional coup. Further controversy erupted the next month when Razafimahefa said he had been pressured to decline the role of acting president but was now ready to accept it. The government’s response was to remove him as Senate president; he was succeeded in the position by another Rajoelina ally, Richard Ravalomanana, who also assumed the role of acting president of the country in late October. Opposition candidates decried the unusual series of maneuvers.
The 13 candidates standing for president included Rajoelina as well as former presidents Marc Ravalomanana and Hery Rajaonarimampianina. The campaign period was filled with tension as well as bouts of violence. A collective of 11 (later 10) candidates banded together and boycotted election campaigning, instead holding unauthorized rallies to protest the government’s handling of the election (which they said was rigged in Rajoelina’s favor), the dismissal of their concerns over Rajoelina’s dual nationality, and the maneuvers to fill the role of acting president. Many of the opposition’s rallies were dispersed with disproportionate force, leading to injuries. Amid the tense environment, the election’s original date of November 9 was pushed back one week, to November 16. As the new date drew closer, the political climate became even more inflamed, and there were calls for the election to be further postponed. The collective of 10 presidential candidates announced that they were boycotting the election and urged their supporters not to vote. Rajoelina was declared the winner of the November 16 election, taking almost 59 percent of the vote. He was sworn in for his new term as president on December 16, 2023.
2025 Gen Z protests, impeachment, and transitional government
In 2025 Rajoelina faced significant unrest that began on September 25 and continued into October. Led by the Generation Z cohort, Malagasy citizens initially demonstrated against the chronic shortages of power and water in the country. They soon broadened their concerns to include other grievances, such as dissatisfaction with overall living conditions, and called for Rajoelina to step down. Some of the demonstrations turned violent, with police using rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the protestors, and led to deaths and injuries. Rajoelina’s responses to the crisis included dissolving the government in late September and replacing the prime minister in October, but the unrest continued. The situation began to escalate on October 11, when the elite CAPSAT military unit announced it would refuse to fire on protesters, implored other security forces to do the same, and joined in the protests.
Two days later, Rajoelina delivered an address via the presidential Facebook page. He said his life had been threatened and he was sheltering in a safe location, but he did not say where, and declined to offer his resignation. There were reports that he had fled the country, although that did not stop him from attempting to maintain his authority. On October 14, in the face of a looming impeachment vote in the National Assembly, Rajoelina announced he was dissolving the legislative body. However, the National Assembly ignored his proclamation, claiming it did not meet legal requirements, and voted 130–0 (with one blank ballot) to impeach him. Immediately following the vote, Col. Michael Randrianirina of CAPSAT declared that the military had taken power and suspended most of the country’s democratic institutions. Madagascar’s High Constitutional Court asked Randrianirina to temporarily serve as president and organize new elections within 60 days, but he said that he and the military would govern as part of a transitional administration for up to two years, and would organize a constitutional referendum as well as elections. He also pledged to include Gen Z in the transition process.
The 2025 Gen Z protests in Madagascar are part of a global trend of youth-led mobilization that began in the 2020s. See Generation Z protests for an examination of the underlying factors that have motivated this generation to act as well as to learn more about other countries that have experienced similar protests.
Randrianirina was officially inaugurated as president on October 17 and three days later named Herintsalama Rajaonarivelo as the new prime minister. Cabinet ministers for the transitional government were appointed by the end of the month; most of the portfolios were held by civilians. One of Rajaonarivelo’s early acts as prime minister was to revoke Rajoelina’s Malagasy nationality, decreeing that Rajoelina’s acceptance of French nationality in 2014 violated Madagascar’s nationality code.