580m Ariary Case: Ex-Madagascar Minister Gets 5-Year Term

A five-year prison sentence now hangs on a disputed figure of 580 million ariary, roughly 116 000 euros. Madagascar’s tribunal de première instance of Antananarivo convicted Marie-Michelle Sahondrarimalala, former minister of National Education under ousted president Andry Rajoelina, on Wednesday 30 September for “atteinte à la sûreté de l’État”, undermining state security. The prosecution’s core allegation is financial: that she distributed that sum to bankroll unrest against the transitional regime.

The money is the case. Prosecutors contend she paid agitators to overturn the newly installed transition. Her lawyer, Nicaise Chen, contests the financial basis outright. “She is accused of the distribution of 580 million ariary, or 116 000 euros,” he said, adding that “no material proof of the existence of this sum was produced, no person testified to having received money from her, and no bank traceability or handover of funds was established.” In his view, the verdict amounts to a “purely political conviction”.

Meanwhile, a second financial matter shadows the former minister. She faces separate prosecution before the Pôle anti-corruption of Antananarivo for “abus de fonction” and “détournement de deniers publics”, misuse of public funds, over a public procurement contract for school desks and benches. The two proceedings frame her legal exposure in distinctly economic terms: one turns on an alleged untraceable cash distribution, the other on the handling of a state contract.

Her proximity to the deposed president explains the stakes she was entrusted with. A doctor by profession, Sahondrarimalala spent five years as Rajoelina’s education minister and belonged to his inner circle. After Rajoelina fled to Dubai, he mandated her to defend his interests in a mediation organised by the SADC in Madagascar. She had been a prominent loyalist from the start of the upheaval, denouncing “a armed coup” shortly after soldiers of the Capsat took power a year ago. On 25 October 2025, on the Place du 13-Mai in Antananarivo, she declared that “Andry Rajoelina remains the president of the Republic”, eleven days after his ouster.

The backdrop is a power transition whose financial and institutional consequences are still being litigated. Colonel Michaël Randrianirina’s takeover last year removed Rajoelina and installed a transitional regime. For the transitional authorities, the alleged payment of troublemakers represents a direct threat to state security; for the defence, the absence of any documented money trail undermines the entire case. The 580 million ariary figure sits squarely in that gap: asserted by the prosecution, unverified, in the defence’s account, by any bank record, witness or physical evidence.

The verdict also reached others in Rajoelina’s orbit. The day before her sentencing, twelve of his supporters received one-year suspended prison terms, a lighter sanction contrasting with the five-year custodial sentence imposed on a figure once trusted to represent the deposed president’s interests abroad.

Sahondrarimalala has been in preventive detention since January. Her conviction does not close her file: the pending corruption case over the school furniture contract means further proceedings before Antananarivo’s anti-corruption pole, and further scrutiny of the financial conduct alleged against a minister who once managed a significant public portfolio. Whether the disputed 580 million ariary can ever be traced, or proven absent, will shape the appeal ahead.