Accessing Malagasy Citizenship
187
Ravalomanana officially never granted citizenship to anyone. The transitional
president, Andry Rajoelina, also did not grant anyone citizenship.16 Even people who claim to be close to the president do not get citizenship. The Chef du
Service Affaire Civil et Nationalité of the Ministry of Justice suggested that
there may have been one or two people at most who have received Malagasy
citizenship through the naturalization process since 1998. The dossiers tend to
receive a favorable decision at the Ministry of Justice, but they are denied at
the cabinet level.17
The ineffectiveness of the naturalization process presents an acute problem
for those who are stateless and for non-Malagasy foreigners hoping to access
citizenship. The most recent census was completed in Madagascar in 1993,
reporting a population of 12.3 million. At that time, two percent of the population was reported to be non-Malagasy. Of the foreign population, about nine
percent were estimated to be stateless.18 It is not clear exactly what percentage
of stateless individuals is Karana. As of 2008, the UN estimated that the population of the island was around 20 million.19 Because the Malagasy government
has not taken steps since 1993 to address the issue of statelessness or access to
citizenship, the number of people affected has likely increased. As more people who are foreigners or are stateless have children, the population of individuals in the country who do not have access to Malagasy citizenship grows.
The only real mechanism for breaking this cycle is to marry a Malagasy person,
thereby providing the children of the marriage a path to citizenship through
the Malagasy spouse, or for a woman to marry a Malagasy man and obtain
Malagasy citizenship through him.20
The Karana are less likely than the broader Muslim community to seek
citizenship through marital paths.21 Within the Karana communities there are
16
17
18
19
20
21
Rajoelina was the president of the High Transitional Authority after the military coup.
Following international pressure, an electoral court disqualified him from running in the
elections that took place on October 25th, see Agence France Presse, ‘Madagascar Sets
October 25 Presidential Poll Date’ Capital News (22 August 2013).
See Interview with the Chef du Service Affaire Civil et Nationalité (n 15).
Institut National de la Statistique ‘Recensement General de la Population et de L’Habitat:
Volume 2 Rapport D’Analyse’, (January 1997).
‘Atelier Régional des Nations Unies pour le traitement des données RGPH du 3 au 7 nov
2008 Bamako-Mali’ (Troisième Recensement Général de la Population et de l’Habitation,
November 2008) <http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/sources/census/country_impl
.htm#M> accessed 23 October 2010.
See generally Code De La Nationalité De Madagascar 1960 (n 2).
Sophie Blanchy, ‘Indians in Madagascar: Religion, Ethnicity and Nationality’, in Adesh Pal (ed)
Critiquing Nationalism, Transnationalism and Indian Diaspora (Creative Books 2006) 94.
tilburg law review 19 (2014) 182-193