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Madagascar’s President Rajoelina dismisses government
On Monday, Madagascar’s President Andry Rajoelina announced the dismissal of the government. Having already dismissed the energy minister on Friday, the president was once again responding to the escalating protests that have been continuing for a week in the capital Antananarivo and several other cities. These protests were triggered by ongoing power and water outages, some of which lasted up to 12 hours a day.
In a televised address, Rajoelina apologised for the fact that members of the government had failed to meet the expectations of the people, promised a change of course in public administration and announced more dialogue with the population, especially young people, to enable them to participate in the development of their country. At the same time, the President invited anyone who wants to move the country forward and is qualified to apply for the office of Prime Minister within the given three-day deadline. Until the new government is appointed, all current members will remain in office on an interim basis.
The demonstrators believe though that this does not go far enough, thus the protests continue. They are mainly supported by young people who criticise not only the inadequate supply of basic services, but also corruption and political mismanagement. A coalition of young activists calling itself ‘Gen Z’ continues to demand the president’s resignation following the dismissal of the government. There are also calls for the dissolution of the Senate, the Electoral Commission and the Supreme Court. The movement is mainly mobilising via social media and is strongly inspired by other youth-led protests in countries such as Nepal, Indonesia and Kenya. The opposition has also joined the calls for the president to resign and announced that it will not join any government as long as Rajoelina remains at the helm of the country. However, Rajoelina himself has already categorically ruled out his resignation in a televised address.
The demonstrations led to serious riots. According to the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Office, around 100 people have been injured and 22 killed in the protests so far, some as a result of the use of force by state security forces during demonstrations, but also bystanders who fell victim to looting and gang violence in the shadow of the protests. The government rejects the death toll as unsubstantiated. Nevertheless, the UN organisation called on the Madagascan police to refrain from using disproportionate force. Representatives of the African Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) also expressed their concern about the situation and called for dialogue and de-escalation.
The escalation is rooted in a profound structural crisis: the state-owned electricity and water supplier Jirama operates with outdated infrastructure and is considered inefficient. The current drought, the worst in four decades, is further impacting hydroelectric power production, which covers a large part of the electricity supply. The resulting power cuts affect not only private households and the economy, but also the cable car in the capital, which was completed only last year and is intended for public transport.
Since independence in 1960, there have been repeated mass protests and political upheavals, including in 2009, when Rajoelina first came to power through an uprising. Since his controversial re-election in 2023 (Press Review CW 41/2023), he has faced increasing criticism. Observers are now talking about the most serious challenge to his authority and the biggest wave of protests in years.
Escalating protests in Morocco
Late on Wednesday evening, ongoing demonstrations in Morocco also led to deadly clashes. According to state media, two people were shot dead after police opened fire on a group of people who had attempted to storm a police station in Lqliâa, near the coastal city of Agadir. The group, armed with knives, is said to have previously broken into a security forces facility and set it on fire. The incidents took place against the backdrop of ongoing protests that have been taking place in numerous cities across the country since Saturday. Following the example of similar protests recently led mainly by Generation Z in countries such as Nepal and Madagascar, young people in Morocco are also coordinating protests, which are directed in particular against the lack of public services in the critical areas of education and health, rising youth unemployment and the government’s spending policy.
The wave of protests was triggered by a scandal at a public hospital in Agadir, where eight women died during C-section operations in early September, which was attributed to systemic weaknesses throughout the Moroccan healthcare system. The National Organisation for Human Rights and Anti-Corruption even warned of a collapse of the country’s healthcare system, pointing to decades of mismanagement and misguided political priorities. The response of the Minister of Health, Amine Tahraoui, who dismissed the hospital director but did not undertake any far-reaching reforms, was considered by many to be insufficient, and so the protests in Agadir developed into a broader protest movement led by young people.
This is largely mobilised online by anonymous groups, the most prevalent being Gen Z 212, whose name is derived from the abbreviation for Generation Z and Morocco’s three-digit international dialling code, and which coordinates its activities primarily via the Discord communication app, which is popular among video gamers. While the originators have not yet been identified, the corresponding server on Discord already had 125,000 members on Wednesday afternoon. According to the human rights organisation L’Association Marocaine des Droits Humains (AMDH), the movement is mainly made up of young people between the ages of 18 and 22 who are studying at universities or engineering schools. The protests are mainly directed against high unemployment, which officially stands at 35.8 per cent among young people in the North African country, and the poor condition of public schools and hospitals. At the same time, the government’s billion-euro spending on the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations and the 2030 FIFA World Cup, including €900 million for the renovation of six stadiums and €470 million for the construction of a stadium in Casablanca, is being criticised.
While Gen Z 212 explicitly called for non-violent protests and the first demonstrations were peaceful, violent riots and clashes with security forces had already broken out in several cities prior to the latest deaths. Video footage posted online shows vandalism and looting in some places. But the countermeasures taken by the security forces also drew criticism from AMDH and other human rights organisations: in many places, crowds were dispersed with water cannons and more than 400 people were arrested. In Oujda, a police vehicle was filmed running over demonstrators, seriously injuring one person. Injuries were reported on both sides, among the police and the demonstrators.
According to observers, this is the largest protest movement in Morocco in years. Even before the deadly clashes on Wednesday evening, the cabinet under Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch, who was ranked among the 20 richest people in Africa in 2024 according to Forbes, agreed to meet today, Thursday, to discuss possible reforms in the education and health systems. It remains to be seen whether this will help calm the protests in light of the escalating violence.
In other news
On Saturday, Zimbabwean writer NoViolet Bulawayo was awarded the Best of Caine Award. This unique honorary prize marks the 25th anniversary of the Caine Prize for African Writing, a £10,000 prize for English-language short stories by African authors, and recognizes the most outstanding work in the history of the prize. Bulawayo received the honour for her short story ‘Hitting Budapest’, which won the Caine Prize in 2011. The story follows a group of children wandering through a run-down urban landscape in search of food, and highlights issues such as poverty, social inequality and childhood dreams. The author, whose birth name is Elisabeth Tshele, described her success at the time as a turning point in her career. She went on to publish two widely acclaimed novels, ‘We Need New Names,’ in which ‘Hitting Budapest’ is the first chapter, and ‘Glory.’ Receiving the award again 14 years later is a moment of reflection on her literary career, she said. The jury, chaired by Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah, highlighted her powerful language and impressive narrative style.
Special news: Sudanese volunteer network Emergency Response Rooms receives Right Livelihood Award
On Wednesday, the Sudanese volunteer network Emergency Response Rooms (ERR) was honoured with the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize, for its emergency aid to people in the country. Despite the danger to their own lives, the ERR helps where other organisations can no longer reach. Emerging in 2019 from the resistance against long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir, the network is now working in the North-East African country to combat one of the world’s most serious hunger and displacement crises, which arose in 2023 as a result of the power struggle and subsequent civil war between the military and the paramilitary RSF militias.