Audit Report Confirms PBB is An Eyewash

It's that period of the year again when the audit report affords us an opportunity to become totally outraged at how our tax rupees are wasted. And why bean-counters cannot hide under the cover of PBB to mask their miserable failure.

It's not getting better is it?

Miss Universe: Mauritius and Mexico

16 Matches in 4 Days: Are You Ready?

And these will close the group matches of the Waka Waka edition of the FIFA World Cup.

Group A: If Mexico and Uruguay slack it off today they both qualify to the next round but they might not because this group's runner-up will likely face Argentina next. For France to qualify Uruguay should beat Mexico 3-0 and France has to beat the Bafana Bafana 2-0. That's quite unlikely because France is one of the three teams that hasn't scored yet while South Africa has and will be playing for the last time in front of its crowd.

Group B: Argentina and Korea should qualify.

Group C: My picks are Slovenia and USA (in that order).

Group D: I am expecting Ghana to beat Germany tomorrow while Serbia to win/draw against Australia. That would have Ghana meeting Donovan's side on Sunday.

Group E: Some stylish football is expected when Cameroon meet Holland on Thursday. Not surprised if Japan beats Denmark and play Paraguay on Tuesday.

Group F: Italy accompanies Paraguay and meets Holland on Monday.

Group G: Brazil beats Portugal 2-0 and North Korea need to be thumped 7-0 again for the Elephants to be still playing after Friday.

Group H: I am guessing Spain and Chile.

1,000 of Free Concerts Planned For Year's Longest Day

That's how the Big Apple is going to celebrate Music Day 2010. Greece will end a three-day country-wide celebration today with the larger events in Athens of course. In Mauritius there was something planned in front of the City Hall of Quatres-Bornes as from 10h00. Hmm, have we become dull?

Anyway, did you know that Sigmund Freud hated music? Some people have traced that back to a medical condition he may have had: musicogenic epilepsy.

Thank God, we've got Don.

O Importante E Vencer

That would be "It's important to win" and was Pele's recommendation a few days ago. Dunga, the coach of the Selecao, agrees. But a lot of Brazilians and the rest of the world don't want them just to win they want them to win Samba-style. They may have a point because although football was invented in England beautiful football was invented in Brazil.

We'll find out at Ellis Park tonight. But first we have to watch Christiano Ronaldo battle with Didier Drogba in less than an hour.

Tutu and Shakira Set Soweto On Fire

World Cup Essentials

Match Schedule: 1st Match is host country vs. Mexico 18h local time tomorrow while France meets Uruguay at 22h30. Messi's in action the day after before the interesting match-up between USA and England. Italy is in action on Monday while the Verde-amaleros play on Tuesday.

Wikipedia entry.

The Only Vote That Counts

That would be yours and mine. And in the final analysis the candidate who gets the most votes get elected and the party which gets more candidates elected will form the next government. Full stop.

Unlike what you heard Jocelyn Gregoire say the creole vote will not have more weight in this election. It will not carry less weight either. In fact it will carry the same weight as the weight of all the other components that make up our country. That's because the final outcome depends on the sum total of what each and everyone of us will do tomorrow.

It is a pity that not enough time was spent discussing the issues that really matter to us. But on the positive side many more progressive voices were heard. And they were heard steadily. We're not exactly talking about a whisper here.

14% of Poll Will Now Vote For Ramgoolam

Indeed 7 of the 49 people who voted said they will vote for Ramgoolam given that he has dumped Sithanen. 85% are saying that this will not have any bearing on how they vote tomorrow. The poll would have been a tad more interesting if it had included a third category: those who will not vote for Ramgoolam given that he has not given a ticket to his Minister of Finance.

But it's true that both alliances have promised reversing many of the bean-counting decisions.

Poll Says 22% Decide 3 Days Before Election Day

That's more than one in every five voters. Of the 22%, 8% decide on voting day. 26% decide before nomination day which would mean that they are either blind followers or trust their parties will have good candidates or thoroughly distrust the other parties. 14% decide after the candidates are known while 35% decide only after the manifestos are published.

Which gives you an indication of the amount of respect that our politicians have for us by publishing their program for the next 5 years only 10 days before we go to vote.

53% of Poll Planning To Vote For Alliance Du Coeur

Yep. 41 of the 76 votes casted in this poll were in favour of Berenger's alliance against 26 for L'Alliance de L'Avenir. 6% were voting for a third party while 5% were not going to vote.

Poll Saying May 5 Race is Close

50.7% of the 152 voters said the MMM's alliance will be forming the next government vs. 49.3% for the Ramgoolam's alliance.

If we assume that each alliance will get at least 15 seats and trim three buckets on each extremity, we have 52.1% of the voters saying that Ramgoolam will be staying on as PM vs. 47.9% for Berenger taking over.

Finally, the two choices with the highest number of votes are Ramgoolam getting between 15-20 seats or 35-40 seats.

Mauritians Should Be Able To Vote Anywhere on Our Territory

See there are 5,000 of our citizens from Rodrigues who will be on the main island of our Republic but they will not be able to vote on May 5. Similarly if someone who lives in Mauritius happens to be in Rodrigues on Wednesday he will not be able to exercise his vote.

Is that normal? Don't think so. How complicated is it to get these people to vote? We should also allow advance voting for people who will be out of town on election day. We can look to the US for some good ideas on these issues.

And no, we don't need to get into an academic debate of whether we need a new Republic to do this.

Participate in Our First Survey

Unsurprisingly we're gonna start with one on voter behaviour.

Labour Party Fails To Beat Record

They released their electoral manifesto today which is 9 days before we go to vote. That's what they did in 2005 too. Which gives you an indication of the amount of respect they have for us voters.

Took a quick peek at it and as you would have guessed it has a fair dose of rubbish.

Remember, sniff but by all means don't swallow.

Poll Recommends Women Run as Independent

Only 41% of the 31 voters thought women should ask for a quota of female candidates. Organisations like Women in Networking (WIN) may then have partly missed an opportunity to make the best of the 100 or so candidates they had prepared for the May 5 elections. I say partly because people like Aline Wong who have been involved with WIN and its political arm is standing as candidate.

Of course it matters little whether there are 100% men or 0% men in parliament. What our country is crying for is basic problem-solving ability.

WIN Should Take One Extra Step

Woman in networking have apparently trained 100 women to become candidates in the general elections. That's a very laudable initiative. The only error they're making is to place their political future in the hands of our macho politicians: they want our main parties to allocate 1/3 of the candidates to them.

That ain't going to happen and  I believe they have missed an opportunity to register themselves as a new party. Their only alternative now is to have enough of their members stand as independent candidates. Otherwise their good efforts of preparing so many potential candidates will go to waste. And they might as well start waiting for Godot.

MMM Saying 2 Political Dynasties are OK, 3 Not

That's what you have to deduce from listening to yesterday's press conference. So they were finding it a problem that representatives of three political dynasties have gotten together in an alliance namely the Ramgoolam, Duval and Jugnauth.

But it would have been OK for the MMM to join two political dynasties. So what's going on here? Two is good and three is bad?

That's bizarre because both numbers are prime numbers. Maybe they think 3 is odd which is kind of true. And 2 not being a triangular number like 3 it would have been easy for them to apply their well-honed skills of political triangaz.

MBC's Poor Coverage of The Day's Events

I just checked the latest 19h30 news bulletin and was quite shocked to see that it was made up of only two press conferences: one for each of the two main political blocks in the forthcoming general elections. What kind of news coverage is this? Nothing happened in the world today?

Broadcasting 101 would have called for a 3-minute summary of the main points of each press conferences with the full-length versions aired after a decent news bulletin on the main channel or another one.

I was under the remote impression that we were in 2010.

Worst Economic Management Ever Leaves Sithanen With Little Political Choice

For months now it was clear that Sithanen would probably have to leave his old riding of Belle-Rose/Quatre Bornes and migrate to riding no. 8 or no. 13. But since Wednesday his options have dwindled considerably with the announcement of a 'Bleu-blanc-rouge'  alliance. This is because the MSM got 18 tickets and its Leader will most likely take Rama's current no. 4 position in the next government if that alliance wins the May 5 polls. 

Things got even more complicated for Sithanen with Pravind Jugnauth standing as candidate in no. 8 and pushing one of his candidates with the same ethnic profile as the current Finance Minister in riding no. 18. So ridings 8 and 18 became out of reach for Sithanen and he was left with only one option: no 13.

The snag is this is the riding where Lutchmeenaraidoo will compete in and Sithanen's would not only face more than an uphill battle but will likely make life quite difficult for his running mates and for Ramgoolam at the national level. And apparently Ramgoolam has told Sithanen that he will not get the finance portfolio in his next government and the max he can do for him is a ticket in no. 13.

Considering that Rama Sithanen has always said that he's in politics only to be Finance Minister it looks like he doesn't have any reason to stay on now. He may announce he's quitting politics in a few hours.