Madagascar President Andry Rajoelina has sacked all his ministers, days after he criticised some of their performances as below par and weeks after officials said they had thwarted a plot to kill him.
Nor Rajoelina nor his office issued reasons for the dismissals in a statement issued late on Wednesday.
On Sunday, Rajoelina said the performance of some ministers was unsatisfactory.
“Like in a football team, you have to change when there are failures in government,” he said in comments broadcast on national television.
“There will be a change and this concerns those who do not carry out the work entrusted to them” he added.
Last week, a senior prosecutor said Madagascar had arrested 21 more suspects, including 12 military personnel, in connection with a plot to kill Rajoelina and topple the government.
Six people, one of them a French citizen, were arrested last month on suspicion of involvement in the plot, after what officials said was a months-long investigation in the Indian Ocean island country.
A former French colony with 26 million people, Madagascar has a history of political violence and instability.
Rajoelina, 44, was sworn in as president in 2019 after a hotly contested election and a constitutional court challenge from his rival.
Rajoelina first took power in a March 2009 coup, unseating Marc Ravalomanana. He remained in control at the head of a transitional government until 2014.