Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.

The highlights this week: Madagascar announces plans for a constitutional referendum and elections, the Africa Forward Summit results in billions of dollars in French funding for the continent, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa faces revived impeachment proceedings.

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.

The highlights this week: Madagascar announces plans for a constitutional referendum and elections, the Africa Forward Summit results in billions of dollars in French funding for the continent, and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa faces revived impeachment proceedings.

Madagascar’s election body announced Thursday that a constitutional referendum will take place in June 2027, followed by elections that October. The announcement came after fresh youth-led protests under the “Gen Z Madagascar” movement in early April, which demanded an election date amid rising discontent with the country’s military regime.

The Indian Ocean island made international headlines last October when an elite military unit seized power from President Andry Rajoelina following weeks of youth-led protests. (Rajoelina himself took power in a 2009 coup.) The demonstrations had initially begun in response to repeated power cuts and water shortages, but they escalated after security forces’ crackdown on protesters left at least 22 people dead.

While activists were glad to oust Rajoelina, many also feared what the military takeover would mean for the country’s future.

“Immediately after the military came to power, there were some visible short-term improvements. Power cuts became slightly less frequent, and some communities experienced longer access to running water,” said Velomahanina Razakamaharavo, a research fellow at the University of Reading and author of Peacebuilding in Madagascar: A Multi-Levelled Peace.

“However, these improvements have not translated into sustainable solutions,” Razakamaharavo added.

The junta’s elections announcement may be a cause for hope, but it “cannot yet be considered a clear sign of positive change in Madagascar’s civic space,” Razakamaharavo said. The military government, led by Col. Michael Randrianirina, is fulfilling the two-year transition timeline agreed with the Southern African Development Community to restore democratic governance, she explained, “rather than [showing] evidence of genuine democratic opening.”

As I suspected in October, the military may simply be following the new African coup playbook used by military leaders in Mali, Chad, Guinea, and Gabon: promising institutional reforms and a national referendum........

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