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Madagascar Holds Presidential Runoff Vote

by VOA News

   Voters in Madagascar are casting their ballots in a presidential runoff
   election between two former presidents and bitter rivals.

   Andry Rajoelina and Marc Ravalomanana were the top two vote-getters in
   November's first round of voting, with Rajoelina receiving 39 percent
   and Ravalomanana winning 35 percent. President Hery Rajaonarimampianina
   finished well behind his predecessors in the November vote.

   Ravalomanana was president of the Indian Ocean island nation from 2002
   to 2009, until he was forced out of office in violent street protests
   led by Rajoelina, who was then serving as mayor of the capital,
   Antananarivo. Rajoelina was installed by the army and ruled until 2014.

   Madagascar is renowned for its biodiversity, its vanilla crops, and its
   stunning beaches - but also for its crushing poverty, recurrence of
   bubonic plague, and frequent, devastating cyclones. The World Bank says
   more than two thirds of the former French colony's citizens live in
   extreme poverty.