|
|
Mauritius: The Best Loser System on the Way Out
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
L'Express (Port Louis)
28 March 2008
Posted to the web 28 March 2008
Deepa Bhookhun
Port Louis
Politicians seem committed to get away with the Best Loser System. But the fear that gave rise to it in the first place, is alive and will need to be eased off with another system ensuring adequate representation of minority communities.
So if the "stigma of communalism" is to be removed from the electoral system - and the Constitution - but that we will still have to ensure that "every community of our rainbow nation is adequately represented" in Parliament, it begs the following question; if we need to ensure "adequate communal representation", does this mean that the "stigma of communalism" will still be hidden somewhere in the system? More importantly; does the First Past the Post system ensure adequate representation of all minority communities?
Prime minister Navin Ram-goolam has declared that adequate representation of all the components of the country can be done through proportional representation. In other words, as says judge Albie Sachs of the Sachs report, "the Best Loser System (BLS) can be subsumed (included) into the new dispensation."
In actual fact then, the BLS could be gone in name only even though throughout the years, it hasn't really been the "protection" to minority groups that it has always claimed to be. The BLS was introduced to meet special needs four decades ago. It proceeded from fears of minority communities, but mostly the Muslim community that it might not be adequately represented in Parliament through the First Past the Post system.
But as the Sachs report points out - and as has been witnessed after every election, political parties themselves ensure that they nominate candidates that are representative of all the communities, including sub-communities. Not doing so while the opponent is carefully balancing the number of candidates from each of the differnt ethnic communities to give tickets to, would be shooting oneself in the foot.
The Sachs report presents it thus: "This is not simply because of any subjective desire to appear politically correct, but because of the advantages, which the block-of-three system gives to broadly based tickets. The result is that no community is left out. The degree of correction to community balance, which the BLS provides accordingly tends to be tangential rather than substantive."
Why then, the need to replace the BLS with some kind of a system that will "provide adequate representation," when the system, as it is, already provides adequate representation as has been proved over and over again at election time?
Probably for the same reason that "one of the questions repeatedly raised with the commission and with considerable emotion, was what should happen to the BLS if and when Proportional Representation is introduced" (quoted from the Sachs report).
Obstacle to genuine citizenship
The judges say "no issue before us aroused more intense comment". And surprisingly enough add: "The great majority of deponents criticized the BLS vehemently. They pointed out that it formally introduced elements of communalism into the constitution and violated the very essence of developing Mauritian citizenship; that it was based on four communities identified nearly forty years ago on an arbitrary basis with no underlying present day sociological rationale; that calculations for the appointment of BLS were based on 1972 figures which were completely out of date; that results of individual cases turned out to be irrational and paradoxical."
Most interestingly, the defenders of the BLS were "far fewer in number" and for the most part, said that they did not like the BLS in principle but were reluctant to abolish it "because it had become integrated into the Mauritian electoral practice and provided a degree of reassurance that was meaningful to one or more communities. Only one group of deponents supported the BLS without reservation, though they too, acknowledged that it presented difficulties."
|
So to allay the fears of a few, the BLS might go but in name only. The stigma would remain. The only difference is that it will not be embedded in the Constitution of the country. Only in political parties' constitutions.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 L'Express. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
