ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar (AP) — Madagascar President Andry Rajoelina was toppled Tuesday in a military coup that capped weeks of youth protests over poverty, power outages and a lack of opportunity in the Indian Ocean island country.

Right after parliament voted to impeach Rajoelina, who fled the country fearing for his safety, the leader of Madagascar’s elite CAPSAT military unit said the armed forces would form a council made up of officers from the armed forces and gendarmerie, a military unit that polices civilians, and would appoint a prime minister to “quickly” form a civilian government.

“We are taking power,” Col. Michael Randrianirina told reporters in front of a ceremonial presidential palace in the capital, Antananarivo, as protesters celebrated the news with soldiers. He said the constitution and High Constitutional Court’s powers had been suspended, and that a referendum would be held in two years, though he didn’t go into detail.

From an undisclosed location after fleeing, Rajoelina issued a decree Tuesday trying to dissolve parliament’s lower house in an apparent attempt to preempt being impeached. But lawmakers ignored it and voted overwhelmingly to end the rule of the 51-year-old leader, who himself came to power as a transitional leader in a military-backed coup in 2009.