ANTANANARIVO: An elite Madagascar military unit said Tuesday it had taken power in the Indian Ocean nation after parliamentarians voted to impeach President Andry Rajoelina following weeks of anti-government protests.<\/p>\n
There were celebrations in the streets of the capital after the commander of the CAPSAT military unit, which joined the demonstrators at the weekend, announced that it was in charge.<\/p>\n
The presidency denounced \u201ca clear act of attempted coup\u201d and insisted that Rajoelina, in hiding reportedly out of the country, \u201cremains fully in office.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rajoelina, 51, had late Monday refused growing demands to step down from the protest movement that started on September 25 over power and water shortages, and developed into a campaign against the president and ruling elite.<\/p>\n
Outside the presidential palace, CAPSAT commander Col. Michael Randrianirina read out a statement announcing the suspension of the constitution.<\/p>\n
A governing committee composed of officers from the army, gendarmerie and national police would be established, he said. \u201cPerhaps in time it will include senior civilian advisers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is this committee that will carry out the work of the presidency,\u201d Randrianirina said. \u201cAt the same time, after a few days, we will set up a civilian government.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have taken power,\u201d he confirmed to AFP.<\/p>\n
Afterwards, officers from the unit rolled through the capital in armored Humvees and pick-up trucks en route to their base, where hundreds of soldiers stood in formation to receive them.<\/p>\n
Crowds lined the pavements, cheering and waving as they passed, while some followed the convoy in their own cars, honking their horns in a victory lap through a city still on edge.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a huge joy,\u201d said businesswoman Baovola Zanarison Rakotomanga, 41, among the crowds celebrating at city hall.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have suffered for so long… we hope to now be able to move forward, united,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ANTANANARIVO: An elite Madagascar military unit said Tuesday it had taken power in the Indian Ocean nation after parliamentarians voted to impeach President Andry Rajoelina following weeks of anti-government protests. There were celebrations in the streets of the capital after the commander of the CAPSAT military unit, which joined the demonstrators at the weekend, announced …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":88200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88201,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88193\/revisions\/88201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}