Poll legitimises Ravalomanana's support

Madagascar's new government on Monday called on donors to follow through with financial aid following the successful legislative elections held on 15 December. The interior ministry said over the weekend that with most of the ballots counted from last week's election, President Marc Ravalomanana's party Tiako i Madagasikara, (I Love Madagascar), won over 80 of the National Assembly's 160 seats. Votes from about 20 districts - most of them in remote areas - were still not in, but final results would be announced in the January 2003, by the country's high constitutional court, local newspaper, L'Express reported. More than 1,300 candidates from 40 parties contested the election, widely seen as test of Ravalomanana's popularity. Observers said the election had been peaceful. Madeleine Ramaholimihaso, who headed a consortium of civil society organisations that supervised the country's disputed 2001 presidential poll told IRIN: "Overall, the elections went off without any serious problems. There were, however, some reports in parts of the country of election irregularities but these are being sorted out. In some cases voter registration and the distribution of ballots were carried out incompletely. This caused some confusion between voters and returning officers." The African Union had been reluctant to endorse the new president until it had seen the strength of his support. International donors also threatened to withhold aid unless elections were held in December. But with provisional results indicating that Ravalomanana has the support of the majority of the island's population, his government has called on donors to step up their assistance for Madagascar's economic recovery. In a statement to cabinet last week Ravalomanana called on the international community to honour financial pledges which would go toward rebuilding the economy, destroyed by the recent political crisis. "The Malagasy government has honoured its agreements. The ball is now in the international partners' court, and the battle to be fought now is that of return to normalcy, rehabilitation and development," the statement said.