{"id":9937,"date":"2013-08-24T04:57:50","date_gmt":"2013-08-24T04:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/madagascar-announces-presidential-poll-for\/"},"modified":"2013-08-24T04:58:06","modified_gmt":"2013-08-24T04:58:06","slug":"madagascar-announces-presidential-poll-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/madagascar-announces-presidential-poll-for\/","title":{"rendered":"Madagascar Announces Presidential Poll for October"},"content":{"rendered":"

{{Madagascar will hold a much-delayed presidential election in October in a vote designed to end a deep political crisis prompted by a coup four years ago, officials have said.}}<\/p>\n

The electoral commission said on Thursday that the polls will be conducted on October 25 while parliamentary elections will follow on December 20, along with a second presidential round if the October vote does not deliver an outright winner.<\/p>\n

The new dates follow two earlier postponements amid a lack of funding and controversy over the candidacies of three top contenders.<\/p>\n

An electoral court on Saturday dropped the names of strongman Andry Rajoelina, the wife of his exiled rival Marc Ravalomanana, and a former president after the three refused to withdraw from the presidential race.<\/p>\n

Former disc jockey Rajoelina ousted President Ravalomanana in an army-backed coup in 2009, plunging the island country into a protracted crisis.<\/p>\n

Ravalomanana, a milk mogul who is living in exile in South Africa, has been blocked several times from returning home.<\/p>\n

The poll will be one year behind schedule according to a 2011 agreement to return to political stability brokered by regional bloc the Southern African Development Community (SADC).<\/p>\n

Rajoelina, formerly also mayor of the capital Antananarivo, swore not to run for president, but threw his hat in the ring when Ravalomanana’s wife Lalao declared she would be a candidate.<\/p>\n

Both pose a legal problem, since Rajoelina submitted his candidacy after the deadline and Lalao Ravalomanana had not lived in Madagascar six months prior to the nominations as election rules require.<\/p>\n

Another potential front-runner and former leader, Didier Ratsiraka, filed his candidacy papers two days after he returned from 11 years of exile in France.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

{presidential palace}<\/p>\n

{agencies}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{Madagascar will hold a much-delayed presidential election in October in a vote designed to end a deep political crisis prompted by a coup four years ago, officials have said.}} The electoral commission said on Thursday that the polls will be conducted on October 25 while parliamentary elections will follow on December 20, along with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-9937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9937\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9937"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=9937"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=9937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}