On 13 October 2025, as dusk settled over Antananarivo’s Place du 13 Mai, thousands of young Malagasy gathered, chanting and dancing beneath floodlights and the glow of cellphone torches. The demonstrations began in response to chronic water and electricity shortages in the capital and across the country but quickly broadened to encompass deeper grievances over governance, unemployment, and rising living costs. Initially driven by urban youth and students, the protests soon expanded as trade unions and residents from provincial towns joined in. For two weeks, security forces blocked access to the iconic square. Then, on 11 October, the elite CAPSAT unit, responsible for military personnel and logistics, defected and marched with the protesters into the plaza.
Only 36 per cent of the population in Madagascar has access to electricity, and even urban centres have faced severe power cuts over the past two years, often lasting more than 12 hours per day. These conditions intensified public anger, fueling demands for President Rajoelina’s resignation. Widespread frustrations over corruption, administrative mismanagement, and the deterioration of basic services collided with a long-term economic decline: average incomes have fallen to 45 per cent below their 1960s levels. Madagascar now ranks 120th out of 123 countries on the 2025 Global Hunger Index and 183rd out of 193 countries on the Human Development Index. This highlights the depth of the crisis in Madagascar.
The swiftness of the regime’s collapse contrasted sharply with Rajoelina’s own rise to power. In 2009, he led protests for three months before securing crucial military support. Sixteen years later, his administration crumbled in less than three weeks. Military defection was a critical factor, but the downfall was ultimately the culmination of years of institutional decay and eroding public trust.
The next day, Rajoelina reportedly boarded a French military aircraft bound for Dubai, effectively marking the end of his presidency. It was a dramatic conclusion to a political cycle he had set in motion more than a decade earlier. As in 2009, his removal was shaped by both electoral outcomes and the convergence of street mobilisation, shifting military loyalties, and judicial manoeuvring. By 17th October 2025, Colonel Randrianirina had been sworn in as transitional president, tasked with leading an 18- to 24-month “national recovery” period.
2009: The Making of a Kingmaker
Madagascar’s current crisis is closely linked to the precedent set by Rajoelina in 2009. At that time, Rajoelina was a 35-year-old mayor of Antananarivo who rose to power after a mutiny by the elite CAPSAT military unit forced President Marc Ravalomanana to resign. He was installed as the head of the High Transitional Authority (HAT) with the approval of the same High Constitutional Court (HCC) that would later validate both his re-election in 2023 and his removal in 2025.
The 2009 coup established a troubling precedent: a combination of public protests and military intervention became a means for achieving political change. The High Authority of Transition (HAT), supported by the High Council of Transition (HCC), acted as a legal façade for actions that circumvented constitutional norms. Consequently, since 2009, Madagascar’s democracy has entered a continuous cycle of disruptions that are presented as “transitions” rather than true democratic continuity.
2013 – 2018: Proxy Presidents and Power Games
When international sanctions and diplomatic isolation eventually pushed Rajoelina to step aside in 2014, his departure was more strategic than voluntary. The African Union, SADC, and the European Union made Madagascar’s return to the international community and the restoration of aid conditional on Rajoelina’s withdrawal from the 2013 presidential race. Although he publicly accepted these terms, he continued to operate behind the scenes. His former finance minister, Hery Rajaonarimampianina, ran as his surrogate candidate under the Tanora Mala Gasy Vonona (TGV) movement and the MAPAR coalition, effectively maintaining Rajoelina’s political influence. The agreement was straightforward: Rajaonarimampianina would officially hold the presidency, while Rajoelina would exert influence behind the scenes. Rajaonarimampianina’s victory ended Madagascar’s suspension from the African Union and released previously frozen donor funds, enabling the country to rejoin both regional and financial systems. However, this arrangement also established a dual power structure, with the presidency operating under the influence of its backer.
By 2015, the alliance between Rajoelina and President Rajaonarimampianina had collapsed. Seeking greater independence, Rajaonarimampianina resisted Rajoelina’s efforts to install himself as prime minister and seize control of key economic ministries. This confrontation fractured the ruling coalition and reignited the rivalry between Rajoelina and former president Marc Ravalomanana, who had returned to Madagascar despite pending legal cases. Once again, the High Constitutional Court (HCC), the same institution that had legitimised Rajoelina’s takeover in 2009, emerged as the decisive authority in the country’s political conflicts. In May 2015, when parliament initiated impeachment proceedings against President Rajaonarimampianina for alleged constitutional violations, the HCC intervened to halt the process. This ruling preserved the president’s position and reaffirmed the court’s central role in mediating power struggles among the elite.
From 2013 to 2018, Madagascar did not experience a genuine democratic consolidation. Instead, it entrenched a system of elite bargaining. The military remained in the background, the judiciary was politically aligned, and elections served merely as a mechanism for circulating power among the same established factions. Rajoelina’s return to the presidency in 2018 was not a dramatic comeback but rather the predictable conclusion of a political cycle that had never truly been interrupted.
2018: Return of the Challenger
In 2018, Rajoelina made a triumphant return to the political scene by defeating Ravalomanana in a rematch, which effectively reinstated the power dynamics from 2009. However, his victory, by a margin of just over ten percentage points, concealed a significant polarisation within the country. Nearly half of the population viewed his presidency as illegitimate. This fragile support would come back to haunt him in 2023, when he faced his greatest challenge and ultimately failed.
2023: The Institutional Coup
Rajoelina’s 2023 re-election campaign unfolded like a slow-motion institutional hijacking. First came the revelation that he had secretly acquired French citizenship in 2014, which was a potential constitutional disqualifier. The High Constitutional Court again came to his rescue, ruling that his Malagasy nationality remained intact.
Then came the manipulation of the interim government. When the president of the Senate, constitutionally next in line, refused to serve as acting head of state, he was summarily impeached for “mental deficiency.” Rajoelina’s ally, Prime Minister Christian Ntsay, was installed instead, in defiance of the constitution. The opposition boycotted the vote, and security forces violently suppressed rallies.
Rajoelina claimed victory with 58.9 percent of the vote, but only 46 percent of voters showed up. In effect, he ruled with the active support of barely one in four Malagasy citizens. His democratic legitimacy evaporated, and all that remained was coercion and control.
2025: The Gen Z Uprising
Two years later, in 2025, the streets reclaimed their power. The spark was not political corruption or ideology but daily life itself. On September 25, 2025, after weeks of crippling blackouts and dry taps, young Malagasies took to the streets of Antananarivo, wielding jerrycans and tin-can lamps — the jiro-kapoaka — as symbols of state failure.
Calling themselves Gen Z Madagascar, the movement spread rapidly, fueled by social media and generational frustration. They were too young to remember Ravalomanana’s ouster but had grown up amid Rajoelina’s unfulfilled promises. Their chant, “We don’t want power, we want light”, was both literal and political. The movement’s visual identity was a black flag featuring a skull and crossbones with a traditional Malagasy hat, which was derived from the Japanese manga One Piece, symbolising defiance and national pride.
Within weeks, the protests swelled into a nationwide uprising. The government responded with live fire, killing at least 22 protesters. But repression only accelerated the unravelling. On October 11, the CAPSAT, the same unit that had made Rajoelina a president in 2009, switched sides. Within 24 hours, the capital had fallen.
The Battle Over Information
Inspired by counterparts in Nepal and Indonesia, a Facebook page called Gen Z Madagascar quickly gained more than 100,000 followers in the weeks before the protests. Organisers used Discord servers to coordinate activities, making the regime’s traditional surveillance and crowd-control tactics increasingly ineffective. By early October, they were already urging participants to download BitChat, a Bluetooth-based offline messaging app, to safeguard communication in case the government attempted an internet shutdown.
When protesters entered Antananarivo’s May 13 Square (the Square of Democracy) on 12 October, the movement became even more decentralised. Unlike Rajoelina’s 2009 mobilisation, which revolved around a single charismatic figure, these demonstrations were multi-centred and self-organised. Different social groups took turns orchestrating speeches, prayers, concerts, and moments of silence. Mutinous military units also used the opportunity to engage directly with the young protesters, seeking their endorsement and even holding a funeral ceremony in the square for a soldier killed during the unrest.
As the crowds swelled, the digital front became as decisive as the streets. Protesters relied on encrypted messaging channels, viral TikTok clips, and Facebook posts, all shadowed by a growing fear that the government might throttle or cut access altogether. Rumours of slowdowns circulated widely, and unconfirmed reports described temporary or localised disruptions near the city centre and around key government sites. Some residents said social media had become unusually slow or intermittently unreachable, fuelling anxiety that tighter controls were imminent. Some IODA data suggested an outage on AS 37054 (Telecom Malagasy / Telma), raising the possibility that the disruption was not nationwide but limited to one major ISP. Monitoring groups such as NetBlocks and IODA did not confirm a nationwide shutdown between 11 and 14 October.
In practice, connectivity flickered rather than failed. Yet the sense that the state might tighten the digital chokehold at any moment only strengthened the movement’s resolve. Gen Z’s decentralised online networks proved resilient, and this demonstrated how partial and precarious access to digital communication can sustain mass mobilisation in fragile democracies.
The Final Act: A Coup in Legal Clothing
Rajoelina fled the country aboard a French military plane, reportedly bound for Dubai via Mauritius. This was a deal believed to have been quietly brokered by Paris to prevent bloodshed. From exile, he declared he had been “forced to protect my life” and called the events a coup. He has since refused to step down while in exile. But his flight gave the National Assembly legal cover to impeach him for “abandonment of post.”
Once again, the High Constitutional Court provided the finishing touch, ruling that the presidency was “vacant” and inviting the CAPSAT commander Colonel Michael Randrianirina to “exercise the functions of head of state.” By October 17, the colonel was sworn in as interim president. The cycle now seems to be complete. The same military unit, the same court, the same choreography, only this time, the protagonist has changed. Some called it liberation. Others, a dangerous replay of history.
The New Order
Colonel Randrianirina’s transitional government, announced in late October, is like a patchwork designed to appease everyone and satisfy no one. His 29-member cabinet includes old-guard politicians, Rajoelina’s exiled opponents, and even leaders of the Gen Z movement, among them Lily Rafaralahy, a municipal activist turned tourism minister.
But the balance is precarious. Several Gen Z leaders have complained that they were not consulted and have called the transition “a remix of the old system.”
The African Union has suspended Madagascar once again for “unconstitutional change of government.” The Southern African Development Community and the United Nations have both demanded a “return to constitutional order.” Foreign aid, which is crucial in a country where 80 per cent of citizens live below the poverty line, hangs in the balance.
A Revolution Deferred
For now, Madagascar stands exactly where it was in 2009, under military leadership, internationally isolated, and awaiting a promised transition. Randrianirina has suspended the 2010 Constitution and pledged new elections within 18 to 24 months. Whether those elections will be any more legitimate than the last remains uncertain.
Ultimately, Rajoelina’s downfall reflects the very system he established. His ascent and decline frame a political era characterised not by constitutional stability but by repeated disruption. The “Gen Z” movement, though victorious, now faces the same dilemma as every Malagasy generation before it, how to build a democratic future in a country where the road to power still runs through the barracks and the courthouse.
Sources: ConstitutionNet, Brookings Institution, Freedom House, Al Jazeera, RFI, Africanews, The Guardian, Critical Threats, Solace Global, NetBlocks, IODA, African Union PSC communiqués, and other sources cited in the full report (November 2025).
Research by Joachim Gwoke, Welborn Kibwota, and Mable Amuron