Publi-reportage de Rabin Bhujun, Un Autre

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Partisip Dan Sondaz Eleksyon Parsyel

Nun pran 20 kandida (lor 40) ki nu panse kav gayn eleksyon la. Sirkonskripsyon no 18 ena 42,052 elekter. Kisana u panse pe gayne? Klik lor kandida la.

Berenger Makes Electoral Predictions, Again

He's been saying for a while now that the by-election in BR/QB will be between Arvin Boolell the Labour candidate and Nita Juddoo, a newcomer and the choice of the MMM. Actually Mr. Berenger is doing more: he is telling voters not to waste their vote on other candidates. It's not very different from political leaders making the silly recommendation that we elect all candidates of the same alliance in a general election or Ramgoolam's threat that voters will have to vote for all three of his picks if they want their riding to get a Minister. Voters of course have got a mind of their own and are getting smarter at every election as more and better information becomes available at their fingertips.

The by-election is also highlighting a big advantage of single member constituencies (SMCs) – we had those in 1959 and 1963 – namely the incentives for parties to field their better candidates in an electoral contest. And some of these candidates have provided us with good debates and interesting ideas like Maharajah Madhewoo – he came 7th in riding no. 13 in December 2014 by scoring 10% – who has put his pledges in a sworn affidavit. Just imagine how the quality of our Parliament would improve if we had 40 such contests in a general election.

As for what to make of Berenger's forecasts, we can turn to two previous predictions. The first one is for the May 2010 elections: he predicted 37 seats for his side and he got 18. The other one as shown below (see after 8mn if you're pressed for time) is even more telling: he was dead sure his alliance would grab all the seats in 2014 and therefore get total support for the wicked project to turn Mauritius into a banana republic. His alliance got 47 seats less, Berenger barely made it and Mauritius a top three electoral moment. While Pamplemousses/Triolet dumped Ramgoolam and still got a Minister.

Simple Tools To Evaluate Political Projects (1)

Aka "projet de societé" or social contracts. An important part of any political project is how big a cake a government will bake over a period of time and how that cake will be shared. The size of the cake is usually measured by something like gross domestic product (GDP) while the sharing by a host of numbers. Breaking down a political project like this will provide us with interesting insights. Stay tuned!

December 17 Likely To Be A Trailer For 2019

Voters are basically fed up with the traditional parties. They will not put Ramgoolam back in power simply because they're not happy with Lepep. Or Berenger for that matter. Nope, they're more likely to vote for good candidates. So expect to see Lindsey Collen and other candidates worthy of our votes in Parliament after the next general elections.

Of course Jack Bizlall might not have to wait that long given that he is the best option in the forthcoming by-election. No other candidate has anything that comes close to the breadth of his experience and his ability to bring back common sense to our Parliament. Indeed people who usually vote for one of the parties that spend a lot of money in an election agree: "Bizlall pu met enn bon lord dan Parlman. Kot inn arive la sa mem ki bizin." or "si dimunn servi zot lespri zot pu vot Bizlall". And "mo pu donn li mo vot parski linn defann dimunn tut long so lavi."

Hard to disagree when we see week after week how there's practically no dissent at all in our Parliament. Just way too many people who are in government or striving to be in it so they have the privilege of sinking Mauritius. Further. But after December 2014 when mountains of money and dumb simulations were not enough to push a wicked plan to turn our country into a banana republic down the throat of increasingly sophisticated voters we shouldn't be surprised to see Mr. Bizlall return to our National Assembly. In a few weeks.

A World Cup Without Robben, Gigi and Chile

The fastest football player on the planet won't be in Russia next year. So we won't see him devastating defense after defense in his own characteristic style. Gigi will also miss the World Cup given that Italy -- the country which has won this tournament more times than any country per capita except Uruguay -- failed to score against Sweden. It's always been a treat to have these icons on the pitch. Brazil will also be happy that Chile will not be making it given that they consider the side of Sanchez as one of their toughest opponents.

But Leo will be there after scoring a hat-trick. He will be in the good company of Neymar, Mane and stars we'll discover. Like those that play for the surprising national team of Iceland a country which has four times less people than Mauritius.

How the Two O'Clock Rule Saves Lives

When attempting the roof of the world do so by 14h00. If you haven't forget about it and return to the safety of your tent. Otherwise your chances of surviving and being present at your own funeral fall by a lot. Because you'd be spending way too much time in the Death Zone where oxygen is really scarce. And be exposed to horrific climatic conditions in complete darkness. Failure to observe this rule in May 1996 led to eight deaths on the slopes of the 29,000-footer.

10 people lost their lives in a small perimeter in Port-Louis on 30/3. That was during the day. With most people in office buildings. What do you think would have happened if it was at night and there was a compact crowd of tens of thousands of people of all ages in the streets?

Mauritius Discovers She Has An MP Called Tarolah

That was a few weeks ago. We also learned that he was a PPS. Mauritius found out about this obscure politician not because he made a game-changing contribution but because of what he did with his mobile. And while you would be hard-pressed to list half of the roughly seventy politicians that we sent to our National Assembly in 2014 it would not exactly be the first time. It would be an even bigger challenge to remember what they've contributed in making Mauritius better.

This is clearly a sign that our Parliament is way too big. And is costing us too much. It definitely highlights the absurdity of the suggestion that we need an extra 20 MPs to correct the lopsided outcomes that our excellent FPTP system produces on some occasions. It's silly for two reasons. One is that between 1977 and 2014 India has kept her number of MPs constant although the voting population there rose by half a billion. The other is that we can actually correct the imbalance by making our Parliament smaller. And that too without compromising the big advantages of the FPTP system or resorting to totally undemocratic devices like party lists and double candidacies.

Some History On Its Way

With the departure of Soodhun there's a possibility we might see Fazila Daureeawoo in the front bench of our Parliament. This would open the door for her to become the first female acting Prime Minister. All it will take is for the three ministers that are highest in the hierarchy to be out of the country. And it might happen when President Fakim -- who's been awfully quiet about recent threats to our national unity -- is in the Le Reduit. The odds of Ms. Daureeawoo making history are actually higher as PJ would have to dump Collendavelloo, a huge and growing electoral liability, soon. Very soon.

And if you noticed more history was made last 12 March when for the first time a Prime Minister of Mauritius who attended our flag-raising ceremony at historic Champ de Mars hadn't declared a community in a general elections. It would have been basic poetic justice for this honour to go to SSR the first time the Four Bands replaced the Union Jack. But that was not possible. This didn't distract the team he built from proving Meade wrong. A very tall order.