QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men"
-- Edmund Burke

Electoral Reform: A Must

By international standards, Mauritius rates highly as a democratic country. Except for the brief period in the 1970s, when elections were postponed and a state of emergency instituted – which historians will quite likely say for the right reasons – elections are held within the prescribed Constitutional provisions. Our Constitution has worked well; politicians step down when the electors so decide and there is nothing that portends any threat to our democratic set-up in the future. Yet however well our electoral system has served us to this day, we do need to review, adjust and reform.

Virtually all politicians accept that there is need to correct the under-representation of the opposition produced by our electoral system. But, as is wont with politicians generally, winning parties or alliances have dragged their feet or there has been disagreement between themselves (as between the MMM and the MSM) over certain specific proposals (the introduction of a certain dose of Proportional Representation) such that the matter of electoral reform is still in the starting bloc. With the case of Ashock Jugnauth now before the Privy Council, the issue of electoral corruption has been hogging the headlines once again. As far as the long-term interests of the country are concerned, it is immaterial whether Mr Jugnauth loses his case and a by-election is held in Constituency No 8, or if the government chooses instead to go for anticipated general elections.

The point to bear in mind is that the electoral fever that usually accompanies such campaigns will drown all hopes of electoral reform with no end in view. Can the fundamental electoral reform issue be shelved on such pretexts? It cannot. There are strong arguments militating for an active interest and engagement by civil society with a view to ensuring that free and fair elections should now ensue if only with regard to the financing aspect of electoral campaigns.

Electoral financing by private companies and ethnicity are two of the most pernicious elements vitiating the democratic process. The perverse effects of ethnic-based politics is well-known here, and there is, as Commissioner Sachs pointed out in his report, no need to insist how powerful and rich corporations have, through financial pressure, tried the world over to influence those likely to make political decisions.

The Sachs Commission had already in 2002 submitted a draft Public Funding of Political Parties Bill which provided for the establishment of a Fund which would receive funds appropriated by Parliament and to be administered by the Electoral Supervisory Commission. But while Commissions may propose, it is left for governments to dispose. We do not have to go very far to understand why parties that make up governments have shown no disposition at all to ban altogether any possibility of political patronage by powerful companies. No one has legislated in favour of public funding of electoral campaigns. There should be good reasons for this state of affairs. Covert private funding of electoral campaigns, as it is the case now, creates scope for electoral monies to be kept under wraps, away from public scrutiny. Public official funding will become subject to audits by the relevant public authorities, thus making political leaders accountable for electoral expenses undertaken during the campaigns.  This should be a strong enough reason why politicians are averse to the implementation of a transparent Public Funding system.

Private funding, apart from ensuring immunity from public accountability, breeds corruption. It keeps alive commercial corrupt lobbies bending the rules in their favour against the public interest. It subjugates political parties to a perpetual regime of submission to corrupt ethnicity and protection of so-called minority rights. It acts against the emergence of competent politicians leading the affairs of state. It helps to maintain the nation in a fractured state, ever prone to communal powers. It confers on a handful of politicians or on single politicians the power to determine the fate of votes expressed in the polls by deciding the profile of Cabinets. It perpetuates a system in which nationhood would last the duration of national day celebrations.

So many shortcomings! Can we hope one day for a better future for our democratic process? Can we hope for a better future with guarantees instituted for ensuring free and fair elections for competing parties?

M.R.