The youth-led movement behind nearly two weeks of anti-government protests in Madagascar rejected dialogue with President Andry Rajoelina and called a strike and new demonstration for Thursday.Near-daily protests erupted in the impoverished Indian Ocean island on September 25, claiming at least 22 lives, according to a UN toll that is disputed by local authorities.Rajoelina sacked his entire government last week and appointed an army general as prime minister on Monday, calling a public meeting at the presidential palace Wednesday where he heard complaints from dozens of participants.The meeting was snubbed by the Gen Z Mada movement leading the protests, which were sparked by anger over frequent power and water cuts. “We reject this sham dialogue,” the group said on social media, criticising “a government that represses, abuses and humiliates young people in the streets”.One of the student protest leaders was nonetheless present at the event, telling the 51-year-old president: “Poverty is becoming severe here in Madagascar because there is too much corruption in the government.””Students cannot focus on their studies due to the lack of light. There is no water. There are even rats where we sleep,” he charged in a passionate tirade that received the loudest applause of the day from the crowd of about 1,000 people.Other speakers raised more personal cases, such as a jailed husband or an unemployed son, in exchanges that were broadcast live on radio and television. In return, Rajoelina promised to resign if the capital was still plagued by electrcity outages within a year.- List of demands -Rajoelina has also appointed new ministers to head the three portfolios covering the army, public security and police, saying the country “no longer needs disruption but peace”.But the protest leaders said these appointments to “restore order” were a challenge and called a general strike and fresh demonstration in the capital Antananarivo for Thursday.The movement comprising about 20 groups has issued Rajoelina with a list of demands that includes a public apology for violence against protesters but does not mention previous calls for him to step down.Other demands are an overhaul of the Constitutional Court and the dissolution of the Senate or at least the removal of its president, Richard Ravalomanana, a former police general. The large island of around 32 million people is the leading producer of vanilla and has significant natural resources but nearly three-quarters of the population lived below the poverty line in 2022, according to World Bank figures.Among the world’s poorest countries, Madagascar has undergone frequent popular uprisings since independence in 1960, including mass protests in 2009 that forced then-president Marc Ravalomanana from power as the military installed Rajoelina for his first term. He won re-election in 2018 and again in 2023 in contested polls.The latest round of protests were initially supported by thousands of people and focused on the capital, with demonstrations also in several major provincial cities. Around 100 people gathered in a new protest near Lake Anosy in the capital Wednesday. The previous day, security forces again used tear gas to disperse scores of protesters in the same area, causing several injuries, AFP journalists reported. Conflict monitoring group ACLED said the month of September saw the second-highest level of protests in Madagascar since it began collecting data in 1997, surpassed only by a surge before the 2023 vote.
