National Day of Mourning in Madagascar. Former President Admiral Didier Ratsiraka died on Sunday at the age of 84 at the military hospital in Antananarivo.
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His relatives indicate that he gave up for cardiac arrest while he had been in hospital since Tuesday for a “routine check-up due to a small flu”. Tributes to this symbolic figure in Malagasy political life have followed one another.
In a blue suit, the serious face, the current head of state, who had asked for his condolences in the morning on his Facebook page, appeared on national television in the late afternoon to pay tribute to the red admiral.
“He was a brilliant leader in political life. He was General Ramanantsoa’s Foreign Minister and he was one of the youngest ministers at the time.
What the people of Madagascar admired about him was when he renegotiated the cooperation agreements between Madagascar and France in 1973.
When he was President of the Republic, he carried and presented the values and culture of Malagasy. His popularity and intelligence spread throughout the Indian Ocean, Africa and around the world.
He was the one who took Madagascar out of the franc zone. Regardless of political parties and differences of opinion, everyone agrees that he has done a lot for the country. ”
He rejected neo-colonialism and he led a completely foreign policy, that is, both with the western countries and also he opened Madagascar for the countries in the east.
Didier Ratsiraka, an anti-colonial president for the historian Lucile Rabearimanana
Former head of state Marc Ravalomanana, Didier Ratsiraka’s great rival during the 2001 presidential election, expressed “his dismay and grief when he learned of the former president’s death”.
This questionable election led to a post-election crisis and clashes between their supporters and then to the admiral’s exile in France. Hery Rajaonarimampianina, the outgoing president, greeted him with a patriot and a man who worked for national reconciliation.
Tribute from their fellow travelers
It was also his fellow travelers from AREMA who praised him. The party loses its founder. Vincent Radanielson is one of the party’s leaders and has worked with Didier Ratsiraka for over 40 years
“The most important legacy he leaves us is the love of the country and the meaning of the word given. The AREMA party is still there and it is a party that is 45 years old now. We did a renovation. A new steering group has just been selected and it is young people who are there. ”
His nephew, Roland Ratsiraka, recalls that he was also a statesman who was not interested in any form of personal enrichment:
He did not prioritize personal enrichment. He built his first house in 2000. And he did not own a car. It was an inner wealth and a moral wealth.
Roland Ratsiraka, nephew of the former president, pays tribute to Didier Ratsiraka
Kl. 13 he will be awarded a military honorary ceremony at the Cour d’Honneur in Iavoloha, a palace he had built at the beginning of his first term. The former president will then be buried in the capital’s mausoleum.
