‘The Year of Deliverance’

Editorial

Labour Party leader Navin Ramgoolam’s prayer is that 2024 shall be the ‘year of deliverance’ for the country. The timing for that deliverance, should it happen, however rests with the Prime Minister, who unlike what obtains in other countries – India, the UK, and others – holds the prerogative for fixing dates for elections. Admittedly at such time that would be politically opportune to ensure the re-election of his party/alliance to power. It would be futile to second-guess the Prime Minister’s decision as regards the date for the next elections, but it is obvious that the political conditions for ensuring at the very least a narrow victory for the MSM are being laid down – systematically and methodically, and more is yet to come.

Salary increases and compensation and increase in old-age pensions with a view to easing the prevailing difficult cost of living conditions constitute but one of a multi-pronged strategies of the current MSM-led government; major infrastructural inaugurations in the health, public infrastructure are also in the offing. And despite the public outcry over the Financial Crimes Commission legislation, one could expect that the MSM will seek to hunt down the Opposition leaders ferociously and ruthlessly in the coming weeks or months. Opposition parties should therefore brace for a turbulent year ahead.

Outside Parliament, Rama Valayden, Dev Sunnassy, Roshi Bhadain, Patrick Belcourt, Bruneau Laurette-Sherry Singh and others have failed to put together a united opposition front away from the traditional parties, and there are speculations about an interest among some of these party leaders in a political arrangement with the ruling party for the next elections. Despite their success in pushing the government to the wall with the Kistnen murder revelations and the Kistnen Papers relating to electoral expenses suspected to exceed the ceiling imposed by the law, Rama Valayden and his comrades have been unable to transition from the fringes of the political arena to become a significant force in local politics. The same could be said for the others, they will remain a marginal force in local politics nationally. However, in the context of Mauritian elections, victories are generally determined at the constituency level, with minor parties potentially acting as a nuisance in specific constituencies, except in special circumstances when a tidal wave sweeps the incumbent out of power as happened in 1982. Some of the minor parties may well therefore constitute a nuisance value in certain constituencies that could play in favour of the MSM.

This leaves us with the old traditional parties – the Labour Party, PMSD and MMM. If the latter parties had initially set great store by their numerous legal challenge of a number of MSM candidates at the last general elections, the Supreme Court judgements in all of the electoral petitions, and the latest Privy Council judgement in the Dayal petition have come as a terrible setback for the Opposition. Moreover, opposition both inside and outside Parliament has not been able to challenge and put a brake to the MSM’s questionable governance of the country, fully protected as it were by the institutional dysfunctions that have put the governance system in the country under lock. To wit, the failures of effective police investigations, a complacent ICAC, a perceived bias of communication and internet regulatory authorities, and an overbearing Speaker in Parliament. The MSM-led government has remained undeterred by civil society, media and opposition condemnations of its governance, and it has pressed on with its political agenda.

The MSM has also chosen its adversary for the next elections: Navin Ramgoolam, convinced that he would constitute the Achilles’ heel in an enlarged opposition alliance. It remains to be seen if electors in Constituencies 4 to 14 hold the same view as the MSM leader. Navin Ramgoolam had himself revealed in an earlier radio interview that he would like to soldier on — for ‘just one more’ term as Prime Minister next time round, probably in a bid to redeem his honour after the public humiliation he was subjected to in 2015. He would have surely put the party’s interest above his own. One can therefore anticipate what’s it’s going to be like in 2024 in the run-up to the next elections: ferocious, bloody and ugly.

Will 2024 be the year of deliverance? Electors hold the key to securing such an outcome. A more informed and wiser electorate, that is.

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Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 29 December 2023