An unwelcome surprise for motorists. While they expected, as promised, fuel prices at the pump to remain stable until the end of the year, they faced a new increase starting Saturday. A difficult balancing act, at least for premium gasoline, which saw a price hike of 200 ariary per liter, rising from 5,100 to 5,300 ariary per liter, while diesel and kerosene prices remained unchanged. This development marks the return of the automatic fuel price adjustment mechanism. But this decision also reflects the government's difficulty in maintaining equilibrium between purchasing power and the budgetary balance suggested by the IMF. On one hand, the commitment to keep fuel prices stable until year-end directly addressed the executive's concern to protect consumer purchasing power against the harmful effects of rising fuel costs. In a context marked by tensions in international energy markets, fuel price stability is a way to limit repercussions on transportation, commodity prices, and broadly, the cost of living. On the other hand, the government must keep an eye on the budgetary equation. Artificially maintaining pump prices comes at a cost that can run into several billion ariary. When the price paid by consumers no longer sufficiently reflects the real cost of supply, the difference must be covered somewhere. This consequently causes a budgetary imbalance whose damaging impact on the country's economy is not negligible. The IMF specifically emphasized this point during its mission last April, when the institution highlighted the necessity of maintaining the automatic adjustment mechanism to limit the impact of rising global oil prices on the state budget and to free up resources for development needs. A difficult balancing act, in any case, for the executive of the Refondation.