The power game and points to ponder over the electoral reform
Written by Editor Friday, 18 November 2011 22:32
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In previous articles, especially at the time of the last election, MN analysed the possibility of an alliance between the Labour Party of Navin Ramgoolam (PM) and either the MSM of Pravind Jugnauth or the MMM of Paul Bérenger.
It was almost certain that Navin Ramgoolam would go the Bérenger way, but at the 11th hour he allied himself with Pravind leaving Bérenger by the wayside. Navin and Pravind, two strange bedfellows, and like all alliances their union was bound to fail, and it did in September over the MedPoint scandal, a private medical concern partly owned by the relatives of the Jugnauths allegedly sold to Government at an inflated price over an original quote.
The case was brought to the consideration of ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption.) MMM and Opposition leader Paul Bérenger was most vociferous in attacking the Government of which the Jugnauths were part and parcel. “Scandal of the Century”, was his condemnation of the purchase of the MedPoint clinic at 144 million rupees when it was first quoted at 75 million rupees.
MSM/MMM alliance
A rumour has widely been circulating in Mauritius that to unseat Navin Ramgoolam (déboulonner Ramgoolam as they did in 2000), Paul Bérenger is now allying himself with the MSM of the Jugnauths with the prospect of Jugnauth, The Elder (80 years’ old and now President of the Republic) will come back into active politics to take over the reins of Prime Minister once more for three years in a power-sharing government with the MMM, and Paul Bérenger will be PM for the remaining two years. A similar scenario between the two leaders took place in 2000.
This time, though, Ramgoolam may have a trump card in his hand. How will Paul Bérenger explain to the electorate the fact that only yesterday he was vehemently chastising Jugnauth, The Younger, Finance Minister in the Labour/MSM government for approving the government purchase of the MedPoint clinic in which his close relatives are said to hold the majority shares. Earlier this century, Jugnauth senior as PM and Paul Bérenger as Finance Minister were highly criticised by Navin Ramgoolam, Opposition leader then, for the sale of the former Delphis Bank at a derisory price. Ramgoolam said that he would set up a Commission of Inquiry into the Delphis saga if ever he came to power.
What a campaign it could well be as regards the next ekection. Many in London see in any MSM/ MMM alliance an end to Ramgoolam’s reign. Is it so?
Electoral Reform
This is an opportunity, as any other, to talk of the Electoral Reform on which we elaborated in our previous issue under the headline “Mauritian expatriates want the Right to Vote in Mauritius”. Incidentally, we wonder what the Mauritius Government will do for the Diaspora now that they (the Diaspora) are being officially solicited to invest in Mauritius.
Anyway, our present point about the prospective electoral reform is about legislation to forbid alliances between political parties before an election, as advocated in the past by MMM leader Paul Bérenger himself. Any coalition of parties should take place after election results are known. This will be fair to the electorate who will not have to be subjected to the party leaders’ policy of Kiss and Kick i.e. Kiss today and Kick tomorrow (and vice versa). Such politics is most unfair on the electorate who must put up with the whims of the leaders to suit their own convenience during an election campaign, and even afterwards.
Electoral Reform: Proposals by Guy Ollivry and Rama Sithanen
Now let us talk about electoral reform again. In a paper that he submitted to press a decade ago, Guy Ollivry, leader of the UDM (a party that never made any impact on the political scene), made a plea in favour of Proportional Representation on the ground that it would prevent the 60-0 phenomenon that occurred twice in Mauritius. In 1982, the MMM (with Anerood Jugnauth on board) on its own steam won all the 60 seats of the National Assembly. The ruling Labour Party went into disarray for several years. Even the party’s leader and PM, SSR (Father of the Nation), was not re-elected in his cherished constituency of Triolet.
Labour was not to recover from this disaster until some party stalwarts, in the early 1990s, came and fetched a reluctant Navin Ramgoolam, son of SSR, from London to be the new party leader. Well, in 1995, the new Labour leader, in alliance with the MMM of Paul Bérenger, took all the seats in the Assembly leaving none to their political adversaries, the ruling MSM of Sir Anerood Jugnauth who left the MMM in 1983 to create his own party.
Mr Ollivry believes that PR would rid the country of this 60-0 phenomenon. Unfortunately, the fact is that, in spite of some cliché, people vote essentially for the party and not necessarily for the individual MP. It has been said in Mauritius that an out-and-out partisan will vote even for a monkey if such an animal is fielded by his party as a candidate. It must be an enormous pleasure for the electors to witness the total wipe out of a party, with all its members, when it has lost all sense of direction. Mr Ollivry says that this is not good. Under the PR system, the hated party (or coalition) must still have some MPs in the House, in accordance with the votes obtained, he reckons. This could be thwarting the wishes of the electorate.
Communalism
The paper submitted to the press by Rama Sithanen, (a former Labour Finance Minister who failed to obtain a Party ticket at the last election) argued for a modicum of PR to eliminate the Best Loser System, which he said, encouraged communalism. (In our October issue we elaborated on this system).
What is communalism and how does one define it? Communalism has to do with community, purely and simply. In France, they have a new word for this communal spirit that they refer to as ‘communautarism’.
Communalism may be used both to mean a state of togetherness, and to demean the same state of togetherness. In the positive sense it can mean service to a community or within a community. In the negative sense, it can mean service to one community at the expense of, or disregarding, all other communities, tantamount to favouritism. One can imagine the state of affairs in multiracial Mauritius under any regime.
We will not shout loud enough to say that communalism is ingrained in the Mauritian psyche, i.e. in the Mauritian way of life, culturally, religiously, politically, etc., etc. Senior posts, be it in Government or the private sector are NORMALLY effected on the basis of communal consideration (Police chief, Service Commissions chairman, Cabinet Secretary, etc and etc). If we have a look at appointments in the Mauritius Diplomatic Service under whatever government we can see that there is yet to be High Commissioner in Australia who is not from the General Population and there is yet to be a High Commissioner in the UK from the same General Population. The same practice may be taking place at the UN and in other embassies. This is the prevailing mentality of our country.
Can Mr Sithanen assure us that any Constitution reform will eliminate the communal spirit in Mauritius? Many members of his own community were convinced that his deselection at the last general election was based on communalism, though we at Mauritius News know it to be otherwise than that.
It may be fair for the Government leaders to have around them people they feel they can rely on unconditionally. Favouritism exists everywhere in the world. JFK employed his brother Robert as Attorney General when he himself became the US President. Many ministers and Permanent Secretaries in Mauritius prefer to have as their PA someone on whom they can rely and whom they can trust implicitly.
Obsession
It is believed that there is too much obsession with the question of communalism in Mauritius. The community spirit is what makes us feel secure and strong in the face of animosity and oppression. Such community confidence starts within our own family in our home and within the relatives around our family, within our religion among similar faithful, then through our friends in our immediate environment, all that blends into the communal group at large, and subsequently into our nationhood that makes our strength and pride.
In the UK we are requested to state our ethnic origin on every official document we fill in. We understand that a Mauritian delegation are appealing to the Privy Council in England with a request to make it unlawful for a parliamentary candidate having to state his communal background on his application form. In the UK such legislation would be defeated, as it is against the Race Equality and Equal Opportunities spirit.
In Mauritius you cannot have a football team with any particular community or religious reference. Such a restriction would be frowned upon as racial discrimination in the UK. Because players of the same community are not allowed to play as a team, football has practically been destroyed in Mauritius. The competition edge has gone out of individual teams.
Mixed Mauritius is a different kettle of fish from Mixed Britannia, (BBC programme presented in October by George Allagiah). In a next issue we may dwell on the difference between the community mix in Mauritius and the community mix in the UK.
Peter Chellen
