Generation Z faces decades of poor governance and poverty in Madagascar

The president leaves Madagascar on a French aircraft, but the real strength comes from the streets, where young people fight against poverty and corruption

The image of Andry Rajoelina boarding a French military aircraft to leave Madagascar is not a photograph of the end of a crisis, but a bitter portrait of a protected sovereignty. While the streets of Antananarivo echo the cry of a generation that refuses to inherit poverty, the “solution” to the political impasse is being created behind closed doors and executed under the wing of a former colonial power. The president’s departure may be a relief for the people, but the way it happened is an insult to their struggle.

What we saw was not an agreement between Malagasy people for the good of Madagascar. It was an external intervention, an “agreement with Emmanuel Macron”, that allowed a leader repudiated by his people a safe exit, while 22 citizens lie dead, victims of repression by a regime he commanded. France, once again, positions itself as the arbiter of the destiny of an African nation, deciding who stays and who goes, treating a sovereign country as an unstable protectorate in need of an external administrator.

The real driving force of this historic change is not in Paris, but on the streets of Madagascar. It lies in the courage of thousands of young people, the so-called “Generation Z”, who transformed their frustration over the lack of water and electricity into an uprising against decades of bad governance. It is in the voice of Adrianarivony Fanomegantsoa, ​​the 22-year-old young man who survives on 67 dollars a month and sums up the feeling of a nation: “the president and his government have done nothing but get rich while the people remain poor”.

This is not a crisis manufactured by elites or a simple power struggle. It is the mathematical result of a devastating economic and social collapse. A country whose per capita income has fallen by 45% since its independence is not failing by chance. It is being systematically fleeced by a corrupt political class, of which Rajoelina is only the most recent exponent. Youth, with an average age of less than 20 years, realized that their future was being stolen and decided to take it back.

The rupture within the Armed Forces, with the same elite unit that brought Rajoelina to power in 2009 now abandoning him, is the final proof that his government has lost any vestige of legitimacy. Royal power returned to its original source: the people. The seizure of control of the gendarmerie and the dismissal of the president of the Senate were not acts of anarchy, but desperate and necessary steps by a nation to take back the reins of its own destiny.

As Rajoelina flies into comfortable exile, the real question remains on land: can Madagascar finally build a future without the interference of external godfathers and without the greed of its own elites? Resignation was achieved in the streets, through the sweat and blood of the Malagasy people. Sovereignty, to be full, must be exercised by them and for them, not negotiated in foreign capitals. The French plane has already left, but “Generation Z” and their dream of a fair and prosperous country remain on the ground, more vigilant than ever.

With information from Reuters*