The Rise and Rise of Parti Malin

It’s a real pity that the by-election in no. 7 was not held earlier because we might have seen something historic. Indeed Danrajsingh Aubeeluck (DA), the unmistakable leader of Parti Malin, could have received a number of votes close to the one the MMM candidate got. See the MMM has been on a steady decline for a long time and managed only 14% in the last by-election which took place in an urban riding. Depending on which candidate it picked the latter might have collected only 3-4% in no. 7 with DA getting around 1-2% – not unreasonable given his improving performance shown in chart 1 – if not more given how the voting pattern has been changing. Citizens after all have become increasingly smart. 

 

Mr. Malin has also been doing a lot better in general elections quadrupling his vote share in a decade in no. 17 (see 2) and clocking his best rank ever in the riding of Ramgoolam in 2014. He's now running in the same constituency as the outgoing PM with the aim of keeping PJ out of parliament. That's not as far-fetched as you might think given that the 793 votes he collected represent about 23% of missing votes that would have sent Ramgoolam back to parliament.

Choice in 2019 Not Between Pravind and Navin

As Ramgoolam has framed the issue. Where our country is right now there's little else we can do than to vote for 60 good candidates and then see what happens. People are less shy about voting for smaller parties now. We saw that recently in the by-election in Belle-Rose – Quatre-Bornes last December. For the first time it took the vote shares of six candidates to reach 90% of the votes casted. Until now all you had to do to get nine-tenths of the votes in a by-election was to add the votes of the top two or three candidates. This is a tectonic shift. That too after voters expressed their feelings about the wicked scheme of three politicians in December 2014.

Ramgoolam is a neoliberal who doesn't give two hoots about Mauritius. We've seen this in his last two mandates. Maybe the 70-year old politician considers Mauritius as a piece of disposable paper. Or something that shouldn't exist after he breathes his last. All that he looks able of dreaming for our country is a bigger safe and carte blanche to that Paglanomist to sink our nation further.

Pravind is not any better. He's a neoliberal too and has been slashing taxes which will speed up the rotting process. As for the MMM the best it can hope is to sign an 'akor a la palestinyenn' as minority partner with Parti Malin.

Can't wait to see us voters flush the ML whose leader – one of our worst ministers ever – found bliss when he looked in the eyes of an Angolan.

Mauritian FB Pages With The Most Likes

I googled but didn't find any lists. But it's not difficult to get a rough idea:

Air Mauritius: 520,672; L'express: 207,879; Lux* Island Resorts: 123,358; MCB: 104,479; Beachcomber: 72,249; Defimedia Group: 45,843; PMSD: 31,432; ION News: 31,348; SBM: 30,213; MMM: 30,172; Parti Malin: 27,975; Mauritius Labour Party: 27,825; Courts: 25, 268; Le Mauricien: 18,863; Flying Dodo Brewing Company: 13,670; J Kalachand: 5,474; MSM: 5,055; MPCB: 2,710; Le Matinal: 1,564; Kozelidir: 288 (Yahoo!); Conserverie Sarjua: 177.

So the PMSD and Party Malin have more likes than the Labour Party. I guess these two parties will win by a landslide in the next general elections. MK looks like it will be the first company to hit a million likes. When you deal with more than 1 million passengers every year surely it's no big surprise that you are right on the top here. But likes don't necessarily mean a lot as people like pages for all kinds of reasons. And page administrators don't all do as good a job.

70% of Poll Says Aubeeluck's A Better Dancer

Than none other than Navin Ramgoolam. Indeed 21 of the 30 people who voted thought that Parti Malin's Leader got the moves.