SEG stands for the Sithanen Electoral Galimatia and the first giant flaw is that government formation could take a lot more time after the polls reveal their secrets. How much more time? Well you can look at some of the recent experiences of countries where the electoral setup is either a proportional representation (PR) system or a mixture of PR and First Past The Post (FPTP). This is summarised in the table below. So including a dose of PR might leave us without a new government for as long as six months. This compares pretty unfavourably to the seven days it took us here in 2014.
And there is worse. If no government is able to emerge from a general election for a given period of time we may need to vote again as it's going to happen in Italy soon. Plus I believe the cost of a general election is in the neighbourhood of Rs300m. The cost is even greater for sticking with a caretaker government in the meantime as it would not feel it has popular support to carry out important work. Mauritius cannot afford so much uncertainty. That's for sure. God bless our FPTP system.
What about at least another giant flaw? Stay tuned.
And there is worse. If no government is able to emerge from a general election for a given period of time we may need to vote again as it's going to happen in Italy soon. Plus I believe the cost of a general election is in the neighbourhood of Rs300m. The cost is even greater for sticking with a caretaker government in the meantime as it would not feel it has popular support to carry out important work. Mauritius cannot afford so much uncertainty. That's for sure. God bless our FPTP system.
What about at least another giant flaw? Stay tuned.
Israel has gone to elections twice already this year but is still having problems forming government.
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