An elite military unit told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that it had taken power in Madagascar on Tuesday, October 14, after the national assembly voted to impeach President Andry Rajoelina for desertion of duty. “We have taken power,” Colonel Michael Randrianirina, head of the CAPSAT military unit, told Agence France-Presse, after reading out a statement at a government building in the capital.

The unit will set up a committee composed of officers from the army, gendarmerie and national police, he said. “Perhaps in time it will include senior civilian advisers. It is this committee that will carry out the work of the presidency,” Randrianirina said in his statement. “At the same time, after a few days, we will set up a civilian government,” he said.

CAPSAT played a major role in the 2009 coup that first brought Rajoelina to power. The 51-year-old president had refused mounting demands to step down, and had gone into hiding after weeks of anti-government street demonstrations in the island nation.

Rajoelina in hiding

Rajoelina, a former mayor of the capital, Antananarivo, said late on Monday that he was sheltering in a “safe space” after attempts on his life, without revealing his location.

The protests began on September 25 and reached a pivotal point at the weekend when mutinous soldiers and security forces, including CAPSAT, joined the demonstrators and called for the president and other government ministers to step down.

CAPSAT’s announcement came minutes after the national assembly, the lower house of Madagascar’s parliament, voted to impeach Rajoelina, in a session that the presidency dismissed as being “devoid of any legal basis.” Just hours before, Rajoelina had dissolved the national assembly by decree, in order to block the session.

The impeachment passed with 130 votes in favor – well above the two-thirds constitutional threshold required in the 163-member chamber. The High Constitutional Court now has to confirm the vote.