A regional mediating body will organise a meeting between Madagascar's transitional leader Andry Rajoelina and former president Marc Ravalomanana, it said Friday night.
Heads of state of the 15-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) decided to bring the two rivals to hold talks as the island country battles to solve a a political crisis that has raged for three years.
“The SADC summit has mandated the mediator of the organisation to organise as soon as possible a meeting between Andry Rajoelina, the president of the High Transitional Authority, and former president Marc Ravalomanana, to put an end to the roadmap to exit the crisis and create a favourable environment to the organisation of credible, free and fair elections,” the regional bloc said in a statement after a summit in the Angolan capital Luanda.
The vast Indian Ocean island has been mired in crisis since March 2009, when Rajoelina ousted Ravalomanana with military backing.
Madagascar's main political factions signed a “roadmap” last September to install a transitional unity government to guide the nation to new elections, expected at the end of this year or early 2013.
The “roadmap” was supposed to provide for the return of exiles, including Ravalomanana, who has been living in South Africa.
But the former president has not been granted amnesty and was slapped with a jail sentence in absentia in 2010 for the deaths of opposition protestors killed by his presidential guard.
Ravalomanana has since tried to return to Madagascar, but in January the army closed the airports and would not allow his plane to land.
In May following talks with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Rajoelina said he hoped elections would take place “as soon as possible” but was vague on Ravalomanana's return, only saying he was ready to make a “political accord.” - Sapa-AFP