SADC concludes consult mission in Madagascar

ANTANANARIVO - Malagascar's political groups have different views on signatories of roadmap aimed at resolving the political crisis in the country, the South African Development Community (SADC) said in a statement Sunday.

South Africa's Deputy Minister of Cooperation and International Relations Marius Fransman, who led the SADC delegation in mission in Madagascar since Friday, said at a press conference that Malagasy stakeholders, especially the political groups, had also different views on the return of former president Marc Ravalomanana to Madagascar.

The Malagasy stakeholders have different of view on the implementation of the article 20 and 45 of the roadmap. The article 20 urges the president of the transition Andry Rajoelina and his supporters to allow without condition Ravalomanana to come back to Madagascar. However the article 45 said that the article 20 does not mean cancellation of Malagasy court decision taken in 2010, condemning Ravalomanana to do hard labor for live for shooting dead dozens of Rajoelina's supporters on February 7, 2009.

Marius Fransman said that all stakeholders consulted by SADC since Friday agreed elections must be held following the UN assessment as well as it was announced by the independent national election commission of the transition (CENIT) report.

"All of them indicated the importance that the CENIT does his job freely and the international community through SADC should support the CENIT to find the processes to hold the elections."

According the agenda announced by CENIT early this month, the presidential election will be held on May 8, 2013, while the legislative polls will be held with the second round of the presidential election on July 23, 2013.

Accompanied at the press conference by Foreign Minister of Seychelles Jean Paul Adam, Marius Fransman said that all the fruit of their consultation of politicians since Friday will be reported to the SADC summit scheduled to be held on August 17-18 in Maputo, Mozambique.

During their mission in Madagascar, the SADC delegation met with the prime minister of the transition, signatories of roadmap, church leaders, representatives of international community in Madagascar, and leaders of the armed forces. Their meeting with the armed forces was lasted five hours according to politicians who were present at the press conference.

SADC decided to hold this consultation after the failure of negotiations between Rajoelina and Ravalomanana in Seychelles on August 7-8, according to Marius Fransman.

Ravalomanana and Rajoelina became political rivals since December 2008, when Ravalomanana closed the Viva television station owned to Rajoelina for broadcasting a speech of Ravalomanana's predecessor Didier Ratsiraka.

Rajoelina, mayor of Antananarivo from December 2007 to March 2009, led massive demonstration against the Ravalomanana. Abandoned by the Army, Ravalomanana gave up his power to a military directorate on March 17, 2012, and hours later the military transferred the presidency to Rajoelina. Rajoelina took officially the power on March 21, while Ravalomanana fled out to exile in South Africa.