Désiré Rakotoarijaona

Désiré Rakotoarijaona (born June 19, 1934 ) is a former Malagasy general , politician and long-time Prime Minister .

biography

Rakotoarijaona was initially an officer in the army of Madagascar and was finally promoted to lieutenant colonel . After the coup of Admiral Didier Ratsiraka in 1975, which led to the founding of the Democratic Republic of Madagascar on 30 December 1975, he became a member of the Supreme Council of the Revolution ( Conseil de la Révolution Supreme ).

He was appointed General and Prime Minister by President Ratsiraka on August 1, 1977, succeeding Justin Rakotoniaina . He held the post of Prime Minister until his replacement by Lieutenant Colonel Victor Ramahatra on February 12, 1988. He is the Prime Minister with the longest term since Madagascar was given sovereignty from France on June 26, 1960.

On July 20, 1991, he took part in a protest rally by the Forces Vives against President Ratsiraka on Place du 13 Mai in Antananarivo , publicly depriving him of his previous support and also resigning from the Unity Avantgarde de la Révolution Malgache (AREMA). He had previously been dismissed as chairman of the Comité Militaire pour le Développement (CMD).

In 1993 he was elected a member of the National Assembly, where he represented the constituency of Tana-Ville until 1998 .

In the presidential election on November 3, 1996, he ran as a non-party also for the office of president. In the elections from which Ratsiraka emerged as president again, however, with 13,488 votes, he only finished last among the 15 candidates and then largely withdrew from politics.

In the wake of domestic political tensions, in September 2009 he made an appeal to the Malagasy armed forces and the revolutionaries around the self-proclaimed President Andry Rajoelina , calling on both sides to renounce violence and to be politically neutral in the crisis. In the meantime, he expressed himself in newspaper articles as a supporter of President Marc Ravalomanana . In addition, he took on public duties again and was most recently the patron of the celebrations for the dismissal of the 10th grade of the military academy in Antsirabe , at which he was also the former directors of the president's security forces, Generals Jean Raoelina and Alain Randriamamory, but also the self-proclaimed Prime Minister of Rajoelina, General Vital Albert Camille , attended.

literature

Désiré Rakotoarijaona , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 45/1988 of October 31, 1988, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)