Antananarivo — Provincial governors in Madagascar said on Saturday they had decided to carry out a threat to break away from central rule.

Five of the island's six governors appeared on television late on Saturday displaying documents they said would formalise their secession bid, designed to support embattled president Didier Ratsiraka. Ratsiraka's rival Marc Ravalomanana, who controls the capital Antananarivo, was declared president by a court on Monday but provincial governors loyal to veteran leader Ratsiraka have not accepted the ruling.

"We have decided to create a confederation of five independent states," said Samuel Lahady, governor of the eastern province of Toamasina.

He did not give a date for when the breakaway confederation would come into effect. The governor of Antsiranana, a northern province, has declared independence.

With no immediate sign of a breakthrough in the four-month crisis, African diplomats left the island on Saturday.

Mediators from the Organisation of African Unity reiterated a call for the island to hold a referendum to choose between the rival rulers one of the options in a peace deal the two signed in Senegal last month.

They urged the lifting of barricades that Ratsiraka's supporters set up at major roads to starve the capital of fuel deliveries.

Ravalomanana said on Friday he would set up a national reconciliation government to try and defuse the crisis.