kabarsula A year after the military coup: authoritarian practices dash Gen Z aspirations for a new Madagascar bandar SLOT INDONESIA

By Nciko wa Nciko

A year since Colonel Michael Randrianirina seized power in a military coup, Madagascar finds itself far from the refoundation that he promised. Instead, his first year in power has been marked by the military’s consolidation of power and the expansion of authoritarian practices. News outlets abound with commentaries assessing Randrianirina’s first year in power. The grievances and demands that led thousands of Gen Z protesters to the streets, including chronic water and electricity shortages and endemic corruption, remain unresolved.

Just like his predecessor Andry Rajoelina, Randrianirina has quickly turned to the law to unduly consolidate power, suppress dissent, instrumentalize anti-corruption efforts against political opponents, and shield his administration from efforts to bring accountability for killing and maiming protesters and for corruption. He has also weaponized the law to restrict civic space by characterizing freedom of association as criminal conspiracy and attempted to secure online mass surveillance powers over dissenting voices to make it difficult for them to critique his regime’s (mis)management of public affairs.

Indeed, Randrianirina’s first year in office has been defined by his administration’s use of state and legal institutions to target political opponents and critics while consolidating power. He has gone further to use outdated “public security” laws alongside the constitution to grant his regime sweeping powers to conduct illegal searches, and to arbitrarily detain political opponents and critics. These unlawful acts have been carried out under the guise of fighting corruption.

Without clear regional and international pressure, Madagascar risks falling again into a familiar cycle of authoritarian practices used to silence dissent and entrench power, leaving the aspirations that fueled the Gen Z protests unfulfilled.

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Yet the fight against corruption has been applied selectively and has been mainly weaponized against opponents. Former officials and political figures from the previous administration and their families have faced intimidation, illegal searches, arbitrary detention and prolonged pretrial detention, with dozens forced into exile. At least 20 individuals remain today arbitrarily detained for politically motivated reasons, including former presidential candidates Sylvain Rabetsaroana and Paul Rabary Andrianirina.

Randrianirina’s pledge to tackle corruption, one of the demands made by the Gen Z protestors, has been contradictory. On taking power, in a welcome move he ordered the Court of Accounts to audit the management of public funds, an exercise that he however limited to public finances covering 2022 to 2025 to strategically shield his administration from accountability as he came to power towards the end of this period under audit.

The audits identified that hundreds of millions of USD in public funds had been lost to corruption and mismanagement. Sadly, instead of carrying out investigations, Randrianirina’s administration seems to be using these findings against political opponents in an attempt to control and silence them. Impunity by public security officials has been another characteristic of Randrianirina’s administration. For instance, soldiers, police and gendarmes are seen in extensive video footage shooting at protesters and bystanders, killing and severely injuring them during the September-October 2025 Gen Z protests.

No investigations have followed. Without meaningful investigations, the administration is sending a clear message to public security officers that they are above the law in an attempt to ensure that the public security apparatus is behind the government. In fact, he elevated four highly ranked officials in the gendarmerie and the army to the level of “head of state”, despite the lack of constitutional grounds upon which to justify this, and populated key government positions with present or former public security officials.

Moreover, the administration has ignored constitutional values and principles of good governance in the appointment of ministers, including one facing corruption allegations. In some instances, appointments have been based on polygraph examinations rather than institutional processes based in law that can fully guarantee accountability, integrity and transparency.

Their salaries and those of the larger bureaucratic machinery have swallowed the bulk of the 2026 national budget to the detriment of investment into service delivery such as water, electricity and health that took a whole nation onto the streets last year. To put this into perspective, health, for example, received just 6 per cent of the national budget, equivalent to about USD 5 per person for a whole year, less than the allocation under Rajoelina and about 50 times less than international standards. Investment in Randrianirina’s personal security is however estimated to be millions of USD. Randrianirina and other highly ranked government officials have even been granted Russian security agents to guarantee their personal security.

Crackdown on dissenting voices

On the other hand, activists and other critical voices have been targeted by the government. Gen Z activists have been accused of criminal conspiracy to assassinate the President for merely communicating with the opposition or discussing failure by the government to address various grievances.

At least nine of the Gen Z leaders were arbitrarily arrested in April simply for being in a WhatsApp group or for having exchanged messages with a political opponent or a whistleblower. Public security officers subjected some of them to acts that may amount to torture or other forms of ill-treatment, including revolvers forced down their throats. Three of them remain arbitrarily held in pre-trial detention, including Rakotoarijaona Mahery, kept in deplorable conditions in one of the most overcrowded prisons in the country.

Gen Z activists have been accused of criminal conspiracy to assassinate the President for merely communicating with the opposition or discussing failure by the government to address various grievances.

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As a precondition for their release, Randrianirina personally pressured parents of detained activists to prevent their children from participating in protests. These efforts to punish peaceful protesters and restrict the right to freedom of peaceful assembly are further shrinking civic space in the country.

Government critics are also facing harassment and restrictions to travel abroad, particularly those who attempted to engage with regional and international organizations. This was the case of Gabriella Ranjamalalasoa, the wife of one of the detained activists, who was arbitrarily detained by the Malagasy Police d’ Enquetes Speciales at the Ivato International Airport in the capital, Antananarivo, and then confiscated her passport to prevent her from boarding a flight to the 89th Ordinary Session of the African Commission of Human and People’s Rights.

Techno-authoritarianism

To further enable their efforts to unduly entrench power and avoid accountability, the government is expanding their powers of surveillance and repression. In August, the government proposed a cybercrime law that would grant it new powers to monitor all forms of online activity while limiting media freedom. The law would require anyone criticizing the government to back such opinions with actual and solid proof. Yet, authorities have refused to pass a law to guarantee the right to access information, which would not only facilitate such verification but also enable scrutiny and transparency. Even more troubling is that the cybercrime law would allow the state to have permanent access to telecommunications data of individuals, without judicial oversight and in contravention of the right to privacy.

Without clear regional and international pressure, Madagascar risks falling again into a familiar cycle of authoritarian practices used to silence dissent and entrench power, leaving the aspirations that fueled the Gen Z protests unfulfilled.

Nciko wa Nciko is the Madagascar researcher, Amnesty International

This Opionion piece first ran in The Africa Report.