The First Defeat

Mauritius Times – 60 Years

The defeat of Ramriki Ramsamy at Curepipe is the first major electoral setback which the Labour Party has suffered since its triumphant entry into the political arena in 1948. In fact, it is Labour’s first defeat at a by-election. In March last, Ramsamy had a majority of 270 over Mr Duval, but today it’s Mr Duval who has a majority of 670 over Ramsamy. What has caused this significant swing? What does this defeat presage? What lesson can be drawn from the election of Mr Gaëtan Duval?

If one were to read the report of the Electoral Boundary Commission carefully one cannot fail to realise that Constituency No 29 was carved out to be rather a Parti Mauricien constituency. But it will be sheer defeatism or a refusal to face the facts to try to explain out Labour’s setback by this argument only because barely a year ago Constituency No 29 returned a Labour candidate. Ramsamy has lost aver 700 votes and Mr Duval has added 200 votes to the number he scored in March last. It is futile for Mr Koenig to read in this result an endorsement of his plea for separate electoral lists. Nor has Labour any real cause for anxiety because the Parti Mauricien backed by that rabidly communal paper. Parti Mauricien supporters had thrown all ideological principles to the winds. Mr Duval must be voted because he belongs to the Coloured community and Ramsamy must not be supported because he is a Hindu. In face of such a campaign no argumentation could work and the voice of sanity was drowned by the communal clamour of a handful of people who wanted to give to the Coloured community its ‘quota’ of MLC’s.

Added to this was the indirect support which the Independent Forward Bloc brought to the Parti Mauricien. Dr Curé, who was the IFB candidate in March 1959, got 319 votes. How is it that Mr Boyjonauth, who had the support of the IFB and the backing of the Syndicaliste-Travailiste group, scored only 221 votes thus forfeiting his deposit? It is known that on polling day supporters of Mr Boyjonauth were canvassing for Mr Duval. The game was clear to everybody: Mr Boyjonauth was turned into a smokescreen behind which the IFB could manoeuvre with the Parti Mauricien. The people know today where the IFB and the group Syndicaliste-Travailliste stood in the by-election of Curepipe: they preferred the Parti Mauricien to the Labour Party.

The election of Mr Duval or rather the success of the Parti Mauricien (PM) augurs badly for Mauritius; it is a consecration of communalism because the PM has always played upon the communal feelings of the people. There was a time when it identified itself completely with the campaign of NMU. Today it seeks to drive a wedge between the Coloured and Indian sections of the population. And in this it has the unreserved support of Le Mauricien which still succeeds in making the Coloured population believe that it defends the interests of the Creole community. Here is a challenge to the Labour Party which has unfailingly upheld the national interests of Mauritius. Unless the Labour Party musters all its resources to counter the nefarious communal campaign, it will become difficult to stop the rot from spreading.

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 Wilful Distortion?

No discussion of any matter of public interest is going either to be fruitful or enlightening if those engaged in the discussion deliberately and wantonly misrepresent each other’s views to the public. To do so is sheer dishonesty and no writer who respects his pen can afford to lower himself. Such a stand becomes more dangerous when all this happens in a multi-racial society where a single spark is enough to set the communal frenzy ablaze thus destroying any fund of goodwill that may exist between the different communities. The Literary Editor of Le Mauricien, has yet to learn these fundamental principles of free discussion. The way he has misrepresented the views of our contributor, Ram, on the system of awarding primary school scholarships unmistakably shows how communal minded he is.

Our contributor said that scholarships should be granted to children of poor parents, but the Literary Editor jumped to the conclusion that our contributor “vise les enfants de couleurs.” But the weekly J. O. Tribune Ouvriere, holds the same view, why does not the Literary Editor take it to task, denounce it from housetops and clamour that that Christian paper “vise les enfants de couleur”? Will he do it? Has he the courage to do so? He should not give us the impression that moral courage is foreign to him.

There is more. In Le Mauricien of January 12, Mr Reynald Olivier wrote that “I’homme de couleur est par définition économiquement faible” but our contributor suggested that only children of poor parents should be granted scholarships. By what process of logic can the Literary Editor come to the conclusion that we were advocating communalism? We are inclined to think that when the Literary Editor wrote his article he was either unconscious or in a fit of extreme stupidity. Or, he might have been deliberately ordered to harp on the communal feelings of his readers.

His argument that our contributor had based his article on communal statistics can be easily disposed of. If he has a retentive memory, he will surely remember that after the general election of March last Le Mauricien was clamouring that the coloured community was under-represented. Does he still remember the type of statistics he dished out? When we express similar feelings, we are communalists! A thousand pities indeed.

7th Year – No 281
Friday 15th January, 1960

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 9 August 2024