Provinces of Madagascar

The new constitution of 1992 stated that the country should be divided into decentralised territorial entities, without going into detail.

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.

This effectively put an end to the "autonomous provinces", although they nominally remain in place because they are included in the constitution.

The law passed by the national assembly in 1994 defined three such entity levels: region (faritra), department (departemanta) and commune (kaominina).

With former president Didier Ratsiraka back in power, the constitution was amended in 1998, to include and specifically mention six autonomous provinces, divided into undefined regions and communes.

Elections for the six provincial councils were held on 3 December 2000, resulting in an AREMA majority in all provinces except Antananarivo.

During the power struggle after the presidential elections in 2001, five of those provinces, whose governors supported Ratsiraka, declared themselves independent from the republic.

This effectively means that the autonomous provinces have ceased to exist as such, and their dissolution is planned (see below).

In 2005, a new entity called "districts" (distrika) was created by presidential decree 2005–012, replacing the department level of 1994.