The opposition platform Rassemblement des Opponents à Madagascar pour la Démocratie (RMDM) had called on all those suffering from the rising cost of living to meet this Saturday at the Magro, a building belonging to the former president. Marc Ravalomanana. But the security forces barred access to party leaders and their activists and supporters.
With our correspondent in Antananarivo, Laetitia Bezain
In the district of Behoririka, in the center of the capital, they are several hundred to claim access to the place of assembly. Many elements of the police have been deployed, crisscrossing the surroundings of Magro and the city center. The denial of access led the crowd of supporters and sympathizers to gather in the middle of the road, chaining sit-ins and face to face in front of the roadblocks of the police. Among them, Madame Juliette, retired. “ I came here because we suffer daily, she says. My children, even if they have studied, cannot find work. People just want to talk about their suffering. But we are being muzzled. They scare us with their weapons. What is happening is unacceptable. »
Antananarivo’s prefect of police, Angelo Ravelonarivo, says that this ” meeting was irregular because the platform did not file a request for authorization to demonstrate with the prefecture ». He specifies that the district of Behoririka was not ” not adequate and that another place, the Magro Tanjombato, on the outskirts of the capital, was offered to the RMDM to hold its rally.
Mihari-ni Rencho is the president of the Natiora party, a member of the opposition platform. ” Still, we can’t help saying that life is very expensive, we’re not going to stop me to say that! We’re not going to stop me to say that a liter of oil is too expensive! Look, we don’t have daggers or clubs, we don’t have anything. We just want to talk, but we are prevented from entering “, he laments.
” We don’t want blood to be shed in Madagascar, we don’t want there to be confrontations between us and the police, promises Alain Andriamiseza, vice-president of the RMDM platform. It is a rally for the recovery of Madagascar, for good governance, for the application of democracy. We are not against the gendarmes and the soldiers who are there. We are against those who give orders to prevent Malagasy people from speaking. The Madagascans are prevented from eating. Madagascans are prevented from circulating. We do not agree. We want democracy at home. »
The secretary general of the TIM party, Rina Randriamasinoro, and its national coordinator, Jean-Claude Rakotonirina, were arrested in the middle of the morning, while they were in front of the police checkpoints, ” because they have made statements inciting hatred “, according to the prefect Angelo Ravelonarivo. They were released in the evening.