On 11 March, following a declaration of neutrality by army leadership, pro-opposition soldiers from the Army Corps of Personnel and Administrative and Technical Services (CAPSAT) stormed the army headquarters and forced the army chief of staff to resign. Over the next several days the army deployed forces to enable the opposition to occupy key ministries, the chief of military police transferred his loyalty to Rajoelina and the army sent tanks against the president's Iavoloha Palace. Rajoelina rejected Ravalomanana's offer on 15 March to hold a national referendum to determine whether the president should resign, and called on security forces to arrest the president. The following day, the army stormed the Ambohitsorohitra Palace and captured the Central Bank. Hours later, Ravalomanana transferred his power to a group of senior army personnel, an act described by the opposition as a voluntary resignation. Ravalomanana later declared he had been forced at gunpoint to relinquish power. The military council would have been charged with organizing elections within 24 months and re-writing the constitution for the "Fourth Republic". However, Vice Admiral Hyppolite Ramaroson announced on 18 March that the council would transfer power directly to Rajoelina, making him president of the opposition-dominated High Transitional Authority (HAT) that he had appointed weeks earlier. With the military's backing, the HAT was charged with taking up the tasks previously accorded to Ravalomanana's proposed military directorate. Madagascar's constitutional court deemed the transfer of power, from Ravalomanana to the military board and then to Rajoelina, to be legal; the court's statement did not include a justification for its decision. Rajoelina was sworn in as president on 21 March at Mahamasina Municipal Stadium before a crowd of 40,000 supporters, a transfer of power that was considered illegitimate and unconstitutional by the international community and widely described in the press as a coup d'état.