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 fled the country.
Madagascar is at the other end of Africa from the “coup belt” of the Sahel, but like Mali, Burkina Faso, and many others, it is a former French colony. Randrianirina insisted on speaking Malagasy to journalists, saying he didn’t like using French, the colonial tongue.