Lawfare Daily: Political Change in Madagascar and Kenya

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4.7 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 October 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

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Summary

For today's episode, Lawfare Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman sits down with Holly Berkley Fletcher, a former senior CIA Africa analyst, to discuss the recent coup in Madagascar and the death of Kenyan opposition leader and political giant, Raila Odinga.

They discuss the reasons for the coup and how Madagascar's neighbors might respond. Berkley Fletcher also explained Odinga's legacy and how his death might change Kenya.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The High Court affirmed his power for now, but said election should take place in 60 days, according to the Constitution.
0:10.1	He said they will take place within two years. So it's obvious this is not at all constitutional or democratic by any means, even though the protesters have welcomed this intervention.
0:23.3	It's the Lawfare podcast. I'm Daniel Biman, foreign policy editor of Lawfare,
0:28.7	and I'm here with Holly Berkeley Fletcher, a former senior CIA African analyst.
0:35.0	That's going to be a real test because I think if it's a free and fair election, he definitely
0:41.3	could lose.
0:41.9	He's definitely vulnerable.
0:43.6	And while Kenya's had transitions of power, they've never had an incumbent leave office
0:48.8	after losing.
0:50.6	Today we're talking about the coup in Madagascar and the death of a giant in Kenyan politics.
0:57.3	Let's start with Madagascar, and the last week seems to have been quite significant.
1:03.2	On 14 October, we had the military take power, and that was after a pretty dramatic set of events before that. Talk us through simply
1:14.0	what happened and where we are today. Yeah. Well, it's dramatic and it's not for Madagascar. This is
1:19.6	actually their fourth coup. Since independence and there's been many other attempted coups. And the
1:25.3	president who was just ousted himself came to power in a coup in
1:30.3	2009. There's been fragile democratic progress since then. But this situation really developed very
1:40.0	rapidly. The last coup took place over months before the then-president was actually ousted.
1:46.7	This has happened in weeks. It started September 25th with the beginning of youth-led online
1:54.2	organized protests that we've seen in a number of countries of late. Protesting the economic
2:00.7	situation, very high unemployment,
2:04.0	very high poverty, and then most immediately water and power cuts, devastating water and
2:11.8	power cuts, up to 12 hours a day power cuts, which obviously makes productivity really difficult and further harms
	...

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