Freedom of expression during each president's tenure

Every president since 1991, ranked by how the freedom of expression changed from their first day in office. Politare shows what happened during a tenure; it does not claim the office-holder caused it.

#	President	In office	Total	Per year	Chart
1	HVM Hery Rajaonarimampianina	25 Jan 2014 – 7 Sep 2018	+15.2 points 2013 → 2018	+3.0 points/yr
2	TIM Marc Ravalomanana	22 Feb 2002 – 17 Mar 2009	+2.2 points 2001 → 2008	+0.3 points/yr
3	UNDD Albert Zafy	27 Mar 1993 – 5 Sep 1996	+1.0 points 1992 → 1996	+0.3 points/yr
4	AREMA Didier Ratsiraka	9 Feb 1997 – 22 Feb 2002	−7.5 points 1996 → 2001	−1.5 points/yr
5	Andry Rajoelina	17 Mar 2009 – 25 Jan 2014	−13.1 points 2008 → 2013	−2.6 points/yr
6	Andry Rajoelina	19 Jan 2019 – 14 Oct 2025	−16.1 points 2018 → 2025	−2.3 points/yr

Sorted by total, highest first. Every row is indexed to the last count complete before the first day in office ("from" marks a start that had to move because that count had no data, or because the period cut it); Levels are per cent changes, rates are differences in points; "per year" compounds levels and divides rates. Tenures with under 12 months, or under three observations, are left out. points, 0 to 100, V-Dem's 0 to 1 index times 100 · V-Dem Institute, V-Dem dataset v16 (v2x_freexp_altinf): the freedom of expression and alternative sources of information index, the press, academic and private speech and the media's independence, as V-Dem's country experts rate them, with V-Dem's confidence interval; the 0 to 1 index times 100 · Madagascar data · as of Mar 2026.