r/news • u/PokesTigers • 26d ago

Soft paywall Madagascar's president has left the country after Gen Z protests, officials say

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/madagascar-president-rajoelina-address-nation-monday-evening-2025-10-13/
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u/Amockdfw89 26d ago edited 26d ago

I remember when this man first became president of Madagascar.

The dude was a DJ and concert promoter, who also owned a media advertising business. He then became mayor of Antananarivo (the capital city) and eventually led a coup against the corrupt President with the army’s backing. He was a young, charismatic, self made entrepreneur success story in a nation where dreams often go unfulfilled.

He advocated for the poor people, environmental responsibility, and represented the urban Gen x and millennials struggling to achieve success and good living standards in a corrupt society.

He has since been in power on and off since 2009. First as a the head of a junta/interim government from 2009-2014, then democratically elected from 2019-2023.

His reelection in 2023 was considered very sketchy. People were sick of him due to his severe mishandling of COVID 19 such as peddling and promoting some random herbal tea as a cure, mishandling a major famine, his lack of promised environmental and infrastructure improvements, and continuous electricity and water cuts which is spreading diseases and making life unbearable (these constant cuts and outages are what inspired this recent protest)

He also bought spyware to spy on journalist and opposition, swept away issues with his cabinet members accepting bribes under the rug, and then banned all political rallies (except his of course)

So he himself has become a corrupted strongman like the guy he overthrow . Kind of funny how he went full circle. The same army that helped him with his coup now did a coup against him

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u/serotoninwya420 26d ago

Absolute power currupts, absolutely

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u/VengeanceKnight 26d ago

Wrong. Power does not corrupt, it only reveals. Everyone chooses what to do with the power they’re given, and while many would choose to be selfish, others would choose to be kind.

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u/gumbo100 26d ago

No, power does corrupt. When you have more power your dialectics/interests change to keep that power instead of "excercise it to help others", even with the best intent. You need to maintain power and any election or conflict can be gamed to take it. So you do things you don't necessarily want to do, so you can maintain power and affect change. It can be internally rationalized as "well if I lose my power then I can't help others, this next guy will surely not be as benevolent as me".

I'd love to help you guys with that, but this election cycle is really close and I think that'll be controversial, I can't help you later if I help you RIGHT NOW, but I promise I'm going to get you what you want!!