Version imprimableIn Madagascar, the youth who call themselves “Gen Z,” in reference to the mobilizations taking place in the four corners of the world, have won their struggle against the regime of President Andry Rajoelina, with the military taking power on 14 October 2025.
These young people have had to face fierce repression: at least twenty deaths and dozens of arrests have hit young activists, but also trade unionists who have rallied to this battle.
Army abandons regime
If, at the beginning, the mobilization began on issues of water and electricity shortage, it very quickly led to political demands, including the departure of Rajoelina.
While on Saturday, 11 September, the demonstrators were even more numerous than in the previous days, a decisive event occurred: the entry on the scene of the soldiers of the CAPSAT military unit. Their colonel, Michael Randrianirina, called on all security forces to stop shooting at demonstrators and to no longer obey government orders, saying in the same statement: “Young people are struggling to find work while corruption and the plundering of wealth continue to increase in various forms”, and “the security forces persecute, wound, imprison, and shoot at our compatriots.”
The Army Administration and Technical Services Corps (CAPSAT) is the army’s logistics management service: it manages the equipment and is responsible for the storage of ammunition. In the military, being transferred to CAPSAT is often synonymous with a dead end. This is how Michael Randrianirina, former head of the Androy region in the south of the country, found himself transferred to CAPSAT because of political differences with the authorities.
A special army corps
However, this unit has played a decisive role in the recent political life of the Big Island. Indeed, in 2009, when large demonstrations broke out throughout the country against the president at the time, Ravalomanana, it was the intervention of CAPSAT that made it possible to overthrow him to put in place a young politician, mayor of the capital Antananarivo: a certain Andry Rajoelina.
CAPSAT is the only unit whose barracks are located inside the capital, in the Soanierana district, unlike the others which are located in Ivato, near the international airport, about thirty kilometres from the centre. The CAPSAT soldiers rub shoulders with the inhabitants of the capital on a daily basis and share the demands of the populations.
CAPSAT officers said the entire army has swung to the side of the mutineers. This materialized in the transfer of power to a general endorsed by CAPSAT.
As for Rajoelina, he was taken away by a French army plane, thus allowing him to escape his responsibilities for the economic plundering of the Big Island by his clan and the violence against young people that left more than twenty dead and a hundred wounded, and refuses to resign.
There remains the most important and also the most difficult task: the radical change of the system, a demand of the people.
As international pressure mounts to demand the restoration of constitutional order, young people from GenZ and workers are sketching out what the Madagascar of tomorrow could look like.
Now a new regime has been installed in Madagascar, in the person of Colonel Michel Randrianirina, head of the CAPSAT (Army Administration and Technical Services Corps), in charge of the army’s logistics. This unit, at the end of two weeks of exemplary struggles of the Malagasy youth, known as GenZ, had sided with the demonstrators.
Pressure and threats
This seizure of power was immediately denounced by Andry Rajoelina, now former president, considering it a coup d’état. It should be remembered that he himself came to power in 2009 under similar conditions. He declared: “Power belongs to the people, it is the people who give power and who take back power.”
“Respect for the constitutional order” is now intoned by all the supporters of the established order. France’s president Macron is not to be outdone: he warns against foreign interference in the Big Island, having organized the exfiltration of Rajoelina to avoid a possible appearance before the justice of his country.
The African Union (AU) has an identical discourse on respect for the Constitution. It offers Rajoelina room for manoeuvre by paving the way for economic pressure on the country’s new authorities. There is a threat of a suspension of aid, estimated at about $700 million a year, until constitutional order is restored. An AU that spends its time endorsing the electoral masquerades that are taking place elsewhere on the continent.
Building the aftermath
Another major challenge is the risk of confiscation of the revolution. At the rally in the 13th of May Square in Antananarivo, the capital, organized to pay tribute to the victims of repression and celebrate the victory, army officers, politicians and priests tried, in vain, to relegate the young people to the background.
However, the widely shared desire for a radical break with the old political order remains alive. Already, a “Citizens’ Manifesto for a new balanced governance in Madagascar” has emerged, and meetings are planned to discuss “a change of system.”
This effervescence can also be observed among workers. At Madagascar Airlines, for example, the union issued an ultimatum demanding the departure of the chief executive, a former Air France executive, as well as all foreign consultants. In the event of refusal, the union calls for no longer obeying the orders of the management and for a collegial body to be set up to manage the company.
While the situation remains difficult, young people and workers, aware of the experiences of the past, especially that of 2009, are striving to collectively build a new Madagascar, free from neocolonialism and dependence.
18 and 24 October 2025
Translated by International Viewpoint from l’Anticapitaliste and l’Anticapitaliste.
