In his recent editorial, "Changer les règles sans changer les joueurs", Nad Sivaramen highlights a cynical but persistent reality in the Mauritian reform debate: the futility of amending electoral rules if the «players» remain untouched. It suggests that any reform that bypasses the internal mechanics of political parties is merely a cosmetic adjustment to a stagnant status quo.
This political observation finds its legal counterpart in a recently published article by Vimalen Reddi, which looks at the legal and constitutional arguments to advocate for the regulation of political parties. But beyond the legal and constitutional arguments, it is, in my view, crucial to understand the social and political harms that the oligarchic and opaque structures of our political parties are causing.
In our Mauritian version of this Westminsterbased model, political parties are the gatekeepers to meaningful access to political office. If you cannot secure a party ticket, particularly in one of the main parties, the chances of being elected are practically nil. This is even more accentuated in Mauritius because, unlike the UK, for instance, party discipline is quasiabsolute, and parliamentary behaviour follows party directives rather than individual conscience.
This means that, for all intents and purposes, the political parties control the operating mechanisms behind the structures of participatory democracy, parliament in particular.
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Harm 1: The democratic legitimacy void
By legitimacy here, I mean something very basic and straightforward: whether those who make the key decisions within political parties get that power through fair, open, and accountable processes that grant each member a real and equal opportunity to participate and progress, or whether this power is exercised by a small circle without transparency or consent.
Some would certainly claim that their party is democratic because it maintains decision-making instances or holds regular internal votes. But this is simply not enough. As everyone knows, leadership selection, candidate nomination, agenda-setting, and even policy formulation are shaped and agreed within closed, insulated circles, and other members are simply being presented with pre-determined choices and essentially rubber-stamping these decisions.
Party members are not exercising any democratic authority, but merely endorsing decisions taken elsewhere through processes to which they have never meaningfully consented.
Parties operate as closed and unaccountable oligarchies, insulated from transparency, effective participation, and contestation. In fact, throughout our political history, we have seen that contestation results in only two alternatives: contesting members split and form a new party, or they are kicked out of the party. Most, if not all, political parties within our system simply lack democratic legitimacy.
Harm 2: Recognition Injury
At its simplest, this means that the oligarchic structures within our political parties systematically exclude most people from the possibility of leadership and consistently select leaders from a small demographic subset (this can be parentage, or ethnoreligious, or both).
What this does is create an implicit constitutional hierarchy: it tells us that some groups are constructed as naturally suited to govern, while the rest are relegated to permanent junior or subordinate status. This is a fundamental constitutional and democratic flaw, as it means that not everyone is equal and that political authority flows from privileged groups and not the people.
The leadership of our traditional political parties has remained the exclusive domain of a few names, denying the rest equal opportunity and standing in political life. Alarmingly, the newer parties like Reform Party or Nouveaux Démocrates have, despite their 'reformist' rhetoric, replicated the same oligarchic structures where dominant leaders or circles exercise neartotal control.
This injury goes beyond unfair representation but is an assault on equal citizenship and dignity itself. This hierarchy is internalised by both youth and established politicians alike, with leadership and prime ministership too often seen as 'not for people like us'. Over time, this belief is normalised, and aspiration is quietly and swiftly curtailed, and ambition changes from leadership to loyalty.
This absolutely harms the principle of democratic equality.
Harm 3: The captured choice
In simple terms, this means that voters are blamed for the outcomes of elections even though the real choices available to them have already been curated and restricted by the oligarchic elites of political parties. This oligarchic structure not only excludes most people from political office and leadership but also captures voters and constituencies and binds them to narratives that are not necessarily true. Certain constituencies, particularly 4-14, are often dismissed as unwilling to accept leaders from outside narrow identity boundaries.
This narrative is both patronising and wrong. It reduces voters to mindless herd mentality while obscuring a simpler truth: they have never been offered a real alternative. Party oligarchies already filter the choices that are presented to voters, narrowing their agency and forcing them to make a choice that has already been fashioned for them behind closed doors.
What is criticised as voter behaviour is, in fact, the predictable result of a system that never offered genuine alternatives in the first place.
Where do we go next?
Inevitably, the next question is, I suppose, what do we do about it? Will our current party leaders be willing to change this? Perhaps not, and perhaps the most pragmatic approach is a constitutional challenge. No single party leader wants to be the first to truly democratise, as centralising authority often brings organizational cohesion and electoral discipline, while those that allow genuine internal democratic challenges risk appearing divided or weak.
The incentive structure rewards control and punishes openness. Established parties have learned this lesson, and the newer parties are deliberately replicating these structures. The result is a political landscape where party elites across the spectrum have common interests in maintaining gatekeeping power, even though this undermines democratic equality and representation.
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The legacy of change
Can things be different this time around? A true and meaningful reform would require our current leadership to be forward-looking and courageous. The Prime Minister, Navin Ramgoolam, stands at such a junction. He is perhaps the only one who has experienced both the highs and lows of concentrated authority and perhaps the only one who has won his leadership position through contestation and faced contests to his own leadership.
If he were to push for binding democratic standards for how all parties are run, standards applying to his own party as much as any other, he would leave behind more than policies or projects. He would secure a legacy associated with strengthening the foundations of Mauritian democracy, ensuring leadership is earned through transparent competition rather than inherited through informal hierarchies.
This is reform that endures.
Ultimately, democratizing our political parties may be more important and meaningful than electoral reform. Our current electoral system has its flaws; there is no denying that, and attempting to correct these flaws is important. That said, it has been, to a very large extent, functional.
Our political parties have not. And reforms in that sphere will fix a lot of the problems we face in Mauritian politics. It would open leadership pathways and move away from patronage networks, family lineage, inherited influence, or narrow community calculations and, in doing so, give voters real choices.
