Madagascar gathering backs coup leader Rajoelina
AFP
ANTANANARIVO — A conference organised by the Madagascan government to resolve the 18-month political crisis on Saturday called for coup leader Andry Rajoelina to remain in charge of the Indian Ocean island.
But one key international observer and the several of the island's political leaders dismissed the conference.
Around 2,700 representatives of civil society members and politicians wrapped up a week-long conference on an interim government, a new constitution, elections and national reconciliation.
In a show of hands the delegates endorsed a proposal that Rajoelina should remain as Madagascar's leader but appoint a consensus prime minister not from his native region.
They also called for mayors and regional authorities to be replaced by provisional bodies, whose composition were not specified, but failed to endorse a deadline for holding new elections.
But the chief international political mediator for Madagascar, former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano, called the proposals insufficiently impartial and consensual.
He had already officially disassociated himself from the event.
Representatives of key political leaders including ousted president Marc Ravolomanana, his predecessors Didier Ratsiraka and Albert Zafy also stayed away.
They said they did not want to "endorse this effort doomed to fail."
Madagascar has been bogged down in the crisis sparked by Rajoelina's March 2009 power grab.
His coup prompted the African Union and the Southern African Development Community to suspend its membership until it was a return to constitutional order.
Rajoelina has spurned all the deals brokered by the two blocs to resolve the crisis.