US EditionWho is Michael Randrianirina, the colonel who toppled Madagascar's ...
Colonel Randrianirina suspended Madagascar's Senate, electoral commission, and High Constitutional Court and said elections could take up to two years to restore civilian rule.
- On October 14, 2025, Colonel Michael Randrianirina declared, `We will take power today and dissolve the Senate and the High Constitutional Court,` announcing a military takeover in Antananarivo.
- On October 11, 2025, Randrianirina urged security forces to disobey orders to fire on Gen Z protesters, prompting some CAPSAT soldiers to join after Andry Rajoelina fled.
- Randrianirina's military résumé shows he governed Androy between 2016 and 2018 and led an infantry battalion in Toliara until 2022; he was arrested in November 2023 for allegedly instigating an army mutiny.
- Parliamentarians responded by voting 130 out of 163 to remove Andry Rajoelina, the sitting president, who rejected the vote as held in a 'session without any legal basis', while Father Cosimo Alvati said an institutional stalemate has emerged.
- Randrianirina warned elections could take up to two years, saying the vacant President of the Senate post and political parties create an institutional vacuum to be filled.
25 Articles
25 Articles
Watauga Democrat
Madagascar's new military leader insists takeover 'not a coup'
Madagascar's Colonel Michael Randrianirina insisted on the eve of his swearing in as new leader on Friday that a military power grab that sent President Andry Rajoelina fleeing the island was "not a coup".
Madagascar replaces ousted president with army leader
An army colonel is the new ruler of Madagascar after a military coup that followed weeks of youth-led protests. Michael Randrianirina, the head of an elite unit that toppled President Andry Rajoelina, announced that he was taking over, and the country’s constitutional court declared him ruler. Randrianirina was little known even in Madagascar before the weekend, the BBC reported, although he was jailed in 2023 for planning a coup. Rajoelina has …
His face was still unknown a few weeks ago. Formerly imprisoned for trying to destabilize the regime, Colonel Michael Randrianirina is today at the head of the country. In a few days, he...
Madagascar: Military Seizes Power - Parties Seek a Way Out of the Institutional Stalemate
Antananarivo -- "With the military's takeover of power and President Andry Rajoelina's refusal to resign, an institutional stalemate has emerged," Father Cosimo Alvati, a Salesian with extensive missionary experience in Madagascar, where the military announced they had seized power yesterday, October 14, told Fides. "We will take power today and dissolve the Senate and the High Constitutional Court. The National Assembly will be able to continue…
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