Malagasy foes in fresh peace bid

GABORONE, Monday

Madagascar’s feuding political leaders were gathering Monday for a meeting in Botswana that regional mediators are describing as the last chance to find a solution to the country’s two-year-old deadlock.

The two-day meeting of 11 political parties was convened by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), whose mediation team for Madagascar has proposed a road map that would guide the crisis-torn Indian Ocean island to new elections.

But it is unclear how the mediation team, led by former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano, plans to resolve the impasse around the plan, which has been rejected by ousted president Marc Ravalomanana and two other key leaders.

Ravalomanana, who has been in exile in South Africa since his military-backed overthrow in March 2009, has refused to sign off on the road map, which would allow him to return to Madagascar only when the “political and security environment (is) favourable”.

The plan would also make Ravalomanana’s rival, baby-faced strongman Andry Rajoelina, president of a transitional government that would steer the country to new elections.

It gives no guarantee that Ravalomanana would be allowed to participate in the polls or be included in an amnesty for criminal charges related to the political turmoil.

Ravalomanana faces life in prison if he returns to Madagascar after he was sentenced in absentia for the 2009 murder of a group of protesters by his presidential guard.

A spokesman for Ravalomanana said on the eve of the meeting that the ousted leader still rejected the road map.

“I’m not 100 percent certain what (the mediators) are going to expect,” spokesman Patrick Gearing told AFP.