Madagascar President Andry Rajoelina says he has fled the country in fear for his life following a military rebellion.
Rajoelina made this known in a speech broadcast on social media from an undisclosed location on Monday night.
He, however, did not announce his resignation.
The president has faced weeks of Gen Z-led anti-government protests, which reached a pivotal point on Saturday when an elite military unit joined the protests and called for the president and other government ministers to step down.
The calls prompted Rajoelina to say that an illegal attempt to seize power was underway in the Indian Ocean island and leave the country.
”I was forced to find a safe place to protect my life,” Rajoelina said in his late-night speech, which was also meant to be shown on Madagascar television but was delayed for hours after soldiers attempted to take control of the state broadcaster buildings.
The speech was ultimately broadcast on the presidency’s official Facebook page but not on national TV.
Madagascar’s president flees country after soldiers join Gen Z protests
They were Rajoelina’s first public comments since the CAPSAT military unit turned against his government in an apparent coup and joined thousands of protesters rallying in a main square in the capital, Antananarivo, over the weekend.
The president called for dialogue “to find a way out of this situation” and said the constitution should be respected, according to NBC News.
He did not say how he left Madagascar or where he was, but a report claimed he was flown out of the country on a French military plane.
A French Foreign Ministry spokesperson declined to comment on that report.
Madagascar is a former French colony and Rajoelina reportedly has French citizenship, which has been a source of discontent for some Madagascans for years.
The anti-government protests began on September 25 over chronic water and electricity outages but have snowballed into wider discontent with Rajoelina and his government.
It is the most significant unrest in the island nation of 31 million people off the east coast of Africa since Rajoelina himself first came to power as the leader of a transitional government following a 2009 military-backed coup.
The same elite CAPSAT military unit that rebelled against Rajoelina was prominent in him first coming to power in 2009.
Rajoelina has not identified who was behind this attempted coup, but the CAPSAT unit has said it now controls all the armed forces in Madagascar and has appointed a new officer in charge of the military, which was accepted by the defense minister in Rajoelina’s absence.
CAPSAT appears to be in a position of authority and also has the backing of other military units, including the gendarmerie security forces.
Rajoelina, 51, first came to prominence as the leader of a transitional government following the 2009 coup that forced then-President Marc Ravalomanana to flee the country and lose power.
He was elected president in 2018 and reelected in 2023 in a vote boycotted by opposition parties.
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