Madagascar’s embattled President Andry Rajoelina has issued a decree dissolving the National Assembly as he bids to avert a slide from power.

Rajoelina, who has fled the country , issued the decree on social media on Tuesday, ahead of a planned impeachment vote. However, with parts of the military and the police offering support to mass protests calling for his resignation, his efforts to cling to power threaten to send the island nation’s political crisis spiralling into chaos.

The decree to dissolve the assembly “shall enter into force immediately upon its publication by radio and/or television broadcast,” the presidency said in a statement published on Facebook.

Rajoelina, whose current whereabouts are unknown, defended the move in a separate social media post as necessary to “re

See Full Page