Five Key Ingredients For a Vibrant Democracy

1. First-past-the-post (FPTP) system to have strong and stable governments that form fast after general elections and don’t collapse after partner(s) leave winning alliance. Temporary lopsided results we got a few times can be mitigated with prudent tweak without making bloated Parliament bigger or suppressing dissent with stupid anti-defection legislation. 

2. Progressive taxation (PT) and top tax rates at the right level (35%) instead of a ruinous flat tax (FT) of 15% for better economic growth and distribution after savings culture resuscitated, good drains, 24/7 water, halving of road fatalities fast, preservation of our world-famous views and harmony and respect of nature.

3. Recall elections (RE) to get rid of incompetent politicians within months and not five years. Cheap. Only Rs30m. The cost of a by-election. Expect better behaviour after we use it a couple of times. Think of it as excellent meksin laryaz. 

4. Statute referendums (SR) to reverse toxic policies or anti-patriotic ones and to get rid of Presidents. Relatively cheap. Rs300m. Would have prevented Rs300bn government revenue shortfall and GDP gap of Rs1.5tn at the end of 2018. And tense celebrations of Mauritius@50.  

5. Initiated constitutional amendment (ICA) to get rid of the BLS, allow kreol in our Parliament, prevent holders of constitutional posts from leaving with hefty benefits in all cases and impose term limits on PM and other important posts.

Second ingredient will allow us to resume a much better development path like between 1968 and 2005. Ingredients three and four will improve the situation further and will be infinitely better than what we’ve experienced after ultra liberal policies were implemented thirteen years ago. Their combined use may make ICA redundant as common sense would have made an interesting return. 

Berenger (PB), Ramgoolam (NR), Jugnauth (PJ), Sithanen (RS), Subron (AS) and Boolell want proportional representation (PR) to push us into an autocracy. That’s a situation where they implement toxic policies and it’s a lot harder to keep them out of parliament. But it’s wonderful for political dynasties. We don’t want this. 

Massive Irony Lost on Too Many

The Truth and Justice Commission was set up in March 2009 to look at the complex consequences of slavery and indentured labour. The thing is that this happened at a time when trickle-down economics – the closest you can actually get to slavery in a democracy without recall elections and statute referendums – was implemented in Mauritius for the first time. And this happened a bit after new labour laws which many have regarded as being regressive and have been fighting to get repealed since were passed.

Fixing the pain and injustice of the past requires the same two ingredients as good government: money and talent. Money has obviously been in short supply – there was at least Rs300 billion missing in the government till at the end of last year compared to what the flat tax was supposed to bring in – and so has talent. This has led to an expected deterioration of the living conditions of way too many people. Add the massive disappointment with parties that had members of Cabinet over the last 13 years and you have the recipe for another shock general election.