Labour Has Always Been Against PR

Meet One of the Most Important Political Partnerships in Mauritian History

Greatest Party of Mauritius Turns 85

It gave us so many things. Improvement in worker conditions early on. Followed by a decisive victory against proportional representation. Then the most magic of moments: independence. Along with an excellent constitution and electoral system. Newly-born Mauritius was a left-for-dead country even before the oil crises and terrible cyclones of the 1970s but brilliant policies enabled us to make significant progress providing rapid upward social mobility to the many. 

Since 2005 however it is in its darkest period, furiously betraying its DNA. It’s time for the Labour Party to reconnect to what works.

Lepep Had Promised Several Referendums

In its electoral manifesto (see p7). The PM should forget about several and instead organise one with some crucially important questions like in the chart below. I can't think of more important issues like tax structure and electoral reform. We know what the flat tax has done to the finances of our government and to the country. We are also aware how lucky we are to have such a good constitution. Hey, it has produced clear winners immediately after 10 out 11general elections and stable government after stable government. That's no small benefit for a SIDS like us. Plus we are very mature voters. We have handled five changes of government with four of these happening in the past 23 years. No small feat. So ask us what we think. And get our permission.

Organising a referendum will also bring two major advantages to Lepep. The first one is to avoid a catastrophe in a year by getting precious feedback from voters now for an immediate course-correct. The second one is to be the first government to organise a referendum. That's some bragging rights. If the questions are genuine that is.

Fakim Digs Heels In, Sues Barclays For Half A Billion Rupees

Not only she didn't resign as PJ had announced but the President has made a couple of fast moves. The first one is to sue Barclays Bank for Rs500m. Fair enough, statements of her infamous credit card were printed in a daily. We learned today that she has instituted a Commission of Inquiry to essentially investigate how Sobrinho got his licences and if she had not behaved properly.

It feels kind of strange for Fakim to ask for a commission to investigate her. What is even weirder is that a President is empowered to appoint a Commission of Inquiry into "any matter of public interest or concern, or into any matter in which an inquiry would be for the public welfare" [see Paragraph 2.2]. Then why didn't she ask for one on the Metro Express and another one on the completely stupid and unpatriotic plan of Collendavelloo to privatise water? Should we also mention that the National Assembly can advise her to revoke the Commission she just appointed [see Paragraph 3.4]?

All eyes are now on the Prime Minister who may use article 30 of our Constitution to institute a tribunal to investigate AGF and suspend her in the meantime with the support of the opposition. 

Arvin Fares Very Poorly On Labour DNA

Let's consider three core values of the Labour Party which have helped produced extraordinary results specially between 1968-82.

1. The use of an excellent constitution and the FPTP system. He is for proportional presentation (PR) which is something the LP has always been against. Arvin was also very quiet in 2014 when the MMM and the LP tried to transform Mauritius into a banana republic. Not taking a stand did not prevent him from seeing a 6-term winning streak in riding no. 11 come to an end. Besides our FPTP system has provided us with stable government after government. Something which is less likely to prevail with another dose of PR. Ask Rodrigues and Angela Merkel.

2. Progressive taxation. He is for low-taxes. Boolell doesn't seem to understand the difference between low and progressive taxes like they were before Sithanen messed them up and the 15% flat tax. The latter had already caused a GDP gap of over a trillion rupees -- that's 1,000 billions -- by the end of last April. And record inequality. It's also kind of contradictory for him to say that trickle-down economics doesn't work and at the same time be for it.

3. Building strong teams. While he mentions currency depreciation as one of the failings of the Lepep government one might believe that if he was given the chance he would appoint a progressive Governor at the BoM. But he seems to like the sugar industry way too much. A very regressive attitude. He penned an article recently where he asked for help for that sunset industry. There is only so much government can do. If it is going to throw money after a dead industry how will it roll back problems like the lack of opportunities for our youth and tackle other national priorities? And this will in no way put Mauritius in a position to have a stronger currency which is a great wealth lever.

Overall Mr. Boolell seems to have little in common with the kind of values of the Labour Party that have produced legendary results. The funny part is that he is trying to get elected in riding no.18 on the strength of past acheivements of the Labour Party. Voters are no fool.

Prosecution Commission: What Do You Think?

Government is rushing a bill to that effect these days. Antoine Domingue is dead against it and reminds us of what he predicted a couple of years ago. The fact that the proposed law is going to be retroactive has raised more than an eyebrow. And now the PMSD has just left government. And with it the super majority.

Ramgoolam Granted Bail, A Second Time

But only after spending two nights at the Moka Detention Centre. Which now bring his total to three. And probably three too many. The ruling of the magistrate is quite interesting. As it may be -- if you're like me --  the first one from the BRC (Bail and Remand Court) you're reading. And because it hints at our excellent constitution.

A Faugoo Committee Reviewing LP Constitution

I was kind of puzzled when I heard this the first time a few months ago. Because of the dangerous mess another Faugoo Committee had recommended. Plus we know what voters thought of all of that. I mean tampering with an excellent constitution. I haven't seen the constitution of the Labour Party yet but I suspect it deserves a lot of respect and shouldn't be subjected to sloppy work.

Lawyers Unhappy DPP Attached To AG's Office

As per a cabinet decision on Friday. Unhappy enough that an urgent meeting of the Bar Council has been called for Monday 16h. Essentially some members of the legal profession don't think that such a major change is a step forward because the framers of our excellent Constitution had thought it through and recommended that the process of prosecution be isolated from political influences. For obvious reasons. Like it doesn't make sense that the AG and the DPP share staff and budget. Besides healthy debate is essential when the spirit of our Constitution is challenged.

Incidentally, one of the framers of the supreme law of our land was none other than Stanley de Smith who is remembered as a scholar and legal writer of exceptional quality. So I guess it wasn't a big surprise when the beautiful people of Mauritius chose our current set up over the constitutional equivalent of a badia mal frir.

Bheenick Dismissal is Inelegant and Silly

Our learned Central Bank Governor was sacked on Friday probably on the basis of an irrelevant section of our excellent constitution. This is kind of inelegant towards a citizen of this country who has been a great Governor. You might want to check how the inflation rate -- the biggest enemy of the poor -- behaved during his tenure. Have a look at the external value of our rupee too. A smoother transition -- like the last three times we changed Governors -- would have been more appropriate for the kind of country we believe Mauritius to be.

And the nearly eight years Manou has been at the head of the BoM has made life a bit easier for at least two groups of people. The first one is an overwhelming majority of Mauritians who experienced the tangible benefits of a common sense approach to managing monetary conditions. The second one bloggers like me who had one less thing to rant against.

He will be a tough -- but not impossible -- act to follow. Because there are many people -- across all party lines -- who have gotten used to the anti-inflation capital he helped build. Despite having to deal with Finance Ministers from very small parties who seemed to be confused about monetary policy -- and many other things. At best. And a Financial Secretary who appeared to have a natural predisposition to establish contact with little green creatures that wear an antennae.

And silly because his successor hasn't been nominated yet. 

2014: The Year in Review

January: One Ramgoolam gets closer to another. STC offers lower basmati prices. The Mac is 30. One way CSO can reduce its carbon footprint. PM struggling intellectually with white paper.

February: How our Constitution might help refresh the political scene. Scores lose life in Boko Haram attacks. iStamp to arrive in 2015. Worst Ebola breakout kills thousands. Paco de Lucia dead at 66.

March: Berenger electoral reform proposal is a dangerous flop. Burkas and sarees don't make rapes less likely. Nine years later Ramgoolam's cake still baking. Flight MH370 disappears mysteriously. How to clean up Mumbai smartly. After 389 days Ramgoolam publishes white paper, gives us 42 days to send submissions.

Read the review for Q2, Q3 and Q4.

Mauritius Says No To Wicked Plan of Scheming Trio

By booting Ramgoolam out of power, barely keeping Berenger in the Opposition for a third straight term -- but not before showing him who's the real boss in No.19 -- and preventing Sithanen from getting into Parliament. In what is probably the most important general election since the one that made us an independent country 47 years ago.

So yeah, Mauritian voters have sent a loud and clear message to politicians that they don't want anybody to mess up their constitution and electoral system and that they want the policies which have been creating a huge amount of poverty since 2005 -- due to a massive ministerial skills mismatch -- to end immediately.

They might have voted quite differently if these important issues had not been lumped together with the normal business of electing a government. And if no 84-year old fox had been there to capitalise on this monumental political blunder.

What Mauritian Voters Want on December 11

By and large, a Government with about 35 MPs and an Opposition with 25. They don't want a Government with a lot more seats because then it will start having funny ideas and do some really stupid things. Like messing up an excellent constitution. And they want policies that work for a majority of their fellow citizens not the kind of nonsense that we've seen since 2005.

It now appears that none of the two major political blocks -- thank God! -- will win three-quarters of the seats. Although Labour/MMM won all the seats in 1995 with 65% of the votes. In fact a little data analysis for that election -- which happened two decades ago -- will reveal that all we need for that alliance to shed 25 seats is a displacement of less than 16% of the voters. And about a 13% movement of voters should prevent them from grabbing 75% of the seats.

Shifts of these magnitudes have happened before. For example in 2005 LP/PMSD got 12.7 percentage points more votes than they had five years earlier. And the issues were not as important as they are now. For a hint of the kind of shift that may happen in a week we need to look at the change in the sum of the share of votes the IP and the PMSD received in 1967 and 1976. 44%.

While You Were Sleeping

Suren Dayal was nominated as Minister of Education when Vasant Bunwaree resigned. This happened of course thanks to our excellent Constitution which makes these kinds of changes take place seamlessly.

It's not the first time we're experiencing our excellent Constitution. And definitely not the last. And if our Constitution is so good it's because a number of great and selfless minds have poured over various drafts of it and have iterated to yield something that's literally timeless. For sure we started from a very good base: the British version of a Parliamentary democracy.

Which makes it very different from what one clown has proposed.

Aren't you happy you're voting soon?

Gulbul Confirms Sithanen Proposal is Constitutional Galimatia

If you listen carefully to what he said on radio this week. Given that they are proposing to shift the power to dissolve Parliament to an elected President this changes the nature of our democratic system and will therefore require a referendum where a supermajority -- 75% -- of voters give the nod as well as a unanimous vote in Parliament. He has cited Privy Council interpretations of section 1 of our Constitution as basis for his analysis. He joins two colleagues who have promised to go to court if leaders start choosing MPs.

See I told you the bean-counter had no business on one committee. It also shows that collectively Mauritians are very smart. Which would explain why the bill hasn't been released yet. They know it's amateurish at best. And don't want to look silly again. After it is thrashed unceremoniously.

Mauritian Democracy Competitive Again

From a very low point a few months back in our Parliament when Berenger was trying to prevent Jugnauth Jr. from doing one of the things we send MPs there: debate important pieces of legislation. In that particular case the dumb amendment proposed by Sithanen. We then had that period where Ramgoolam and Berenger announced their alliance and told us that they were sure to win all the seats in the next general elections as their parties represented 40% of the electorate each. With Berenger adding that when that would happen we could count on him to not bully the little -- I guess, extra-parliamentary -- parties. Yeah, right.

That was kind of funny of course because when an alliance had won all the seats -- in 1982 and 1995 -- it got only 65% of the votes. Not 80%. And the next election is not going to be an average election. Nope. We're talking of a really wicked plan to screw up three things: our system of government, our electoral system and the livelihoods of a majority of Mauritians. So a month ago it seemed that there was a pretty good chance that lalyans pep tuni would not even get 3/4 of the seats. But that was before the national rallies of October 12.

Since then everybody knows it's going to be a tight election. And thank God it is.

Why Labour/MMM Alliance is Dangerous

I'll give you three reasons.

1. It wants to change our excellent system of government – one of our most precious assets – for something inherently unstable to satisfy the fantasies of a couple of politicians. We don't want to do this as it would open a can of constitutional worms. Our Westminsterian system of government has enabled four smooth changes of government since 1968. This has allowed us to forge ahead at a healthy pace until 2005. And established our reputation as a vibrant democracy.
2. It wants to make all kinds of dangerous changes to our electoral system on the basis of a very weak report which has been demonstrated to be flawed beyond repair. That includes party lists which shift the loyalty of MPs from voters to their leaders. And double candidacies which are a recipe to make arrogant politicians unaccountable.
3. Sithanen has been chosen as its Minister of Finance. His regressive 'reforms' which began in 2005 have thrown 22,000 Mauritians into poverty – that's 17% of all poor people – and thousands more into a 9-year L-shaped recession. And he has proved to us that he doesn't understand at least two things: how the economy works and percentages. That's a pretty big skills mismatch.

This alliance will never win a 60-0. Far from it. The political exhumation of the toxic bean-counter will not exactly help. But we will have to vote very wisely – for example Lalit is good, Rezistans not really and abstaining bad – and send a very clear and loud message that we don't want any of this nonsense.

Sithanen Says He's No Expert in Electoral Systems

That was Tuesday last on Radio+. And boy couldn't I agree more with him. You can have a Phd but still be no expert because you're too bookish. Or suffer from the great man's disease. Or you're kind of arrogant. He made that statement when his radio host was telling him -- scroll to 31:50 -- that there might be problems with his stupid amendment. Here's percisely what he said:

"Mo pa exper mwa, mo pe fer sa kado pu la popilasyon. U kone mo pe fer sa lor enn baz volonter. Mo pe donn enn kudmin. E u kone kifer mo pe donn enn kudme ? Li bon mo dir sa la popilasyon u kone. Parski pena exper. Dan lezot pei nwena enn panel de expert pu fer sa. U kone ?

Alor la wadire u pe met mwa u pe dir mwa mo bizin truv solisyon. U kone. Mo pe donn enn kudmin kuma enn sitwayin. Mo pa paye par guvernman mwa. Non non, u pe dir mwa ki exper. Mo pe donn enn kudmin pu mo pei. Dan lezot pei zot ena 25 expert. Bann profeser liniversite. E bann dimunn ki fer sa travay la. Nu pena sa. Nu pe seye mem dan bann kondisyon extreman difisil pu truv enn solisyon. Enn problem difisil. Maintenant si bann lezot dimunn ena solisyon la me nu pe donn enn kudmin..."

The snag is that Rama Sithanen has been introduced many many times as THE expert in Electoral Systems over the past 5-6 years -- he completed his degree in 2008 -- but I never heard him point out the error people were systematically making. What I have read though is an interview where he was saying who is an expert.

Why Sithanen Should Be Ejected From The Faugoo Committee

Here are a few reasons:

1. His flawed 2012 report on electoral reform has been widely discredited almost immediately after its publication. And many more flaws have been discovered since then.
2. Our excellent Constitution is the supreme law of the land and shouldn't be tampered with. Any amendment to it shouldn't be done in a hurry and should definitely not be entrusted to people like Dr. Sithanen who has funny ideas about democracy and who has proved to us on more occasions than one that he has serious problems in interpreting data objectively.
3. He has confessed that his mini-amendment is stupid: it works only if it is not used for the purpose it was proposed.