Provinces of Madagascar

Madagascar was divided into six "autonomous provinces" (faritany mizakatena):

The provinces were dissolved as a result of the new regional subdivision and the constitutional referendum of 2007. There was a time frame of thirty months (until October 2009) for the transition. But in the new constitution, adopted in 2010, six autonomous provinces are listed again.

The provinces were created in 1946, when Madagascar was a French colony. They were originally five, while the sixth (Diego Suarez/Antsiranana) was created later, but before the provincial elections in 1957. The same provinces continued to exist after the independence in 1960.

The new constitution of 1992 stated that the country should be divided into decentralised territorial entities, without going into detail. By law of 1994, three entity levels were defined: regions, departments and communes. The provinces were not mentioned in the law.

After former president Didier Ratsiraka was re-elected in 1997, he 1998 introduced a revised constitution in which the still existing provinces were transformed to "autonomous provinces". Before that, no constitution had stated any details about the subdivisions of the country, leaving it to be ruled by law. The autonomous provinces were created in 2000. The official motivation was to make Madagascar a decentralised federal state. Critics say that the hidden motivation was to make sure that Ratsiraka had a solid support from most of the provinces; his party AREMA won the provincial elections 2000 in all provinces except Antananarivo.

With the presidential elections of 2001, in which opposition candidate Ravalomanana claimed that the official figures were fraudulent, the five AREMA provincial governors came out in support of Ratsiraka and even declared themselves independent from the republic.

When Ravalomanana had secured the position as president of the republic, the provincial governors were replaced with PDS'es (Presidents by special delegation), who are still in place. This effectively put an end to the "autonomous provinces", although they nominally remain in place because they are included in the constitution.

Rumours about the dissolution of the autonomous provinces had been around for some time, when on 4 April 2007 a constitutional referendum was held, in which the majority of the voters backed a revised constitution without any provinces. The new regions will become the highest level of subdivision.

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Wikipedia