Africa-Press – Mauritius. A recent survey of the political situation has generated a lot of ink over the past two weeks. The main conclusions of this survey are that nearly 68% of respondents expect the emergence of a new political leader, that the MSM is at the top of voting intentions with 19.5% support at the level of individual parties, that the parliamentary opposition alliance is currently leading voting intentions for the next general elections with 36% and the new parties are struggling to exceed the 5% membership threshold.
The first thing to note is that the survey does not declare its methodology, does not reveal its questions or say anything about the sampling used. He speaks of 1000 respondents, but does not give the profile of these respondents, which makes it impossible to know whether or not the sample is representative of the multitude of political opinions.
Indeed, Mauritius, despite the small size of its territory, is a country of great political complexity. The identity dimension of the vote, its geography too, with a still active division between rurality and urbanity, the ideological dimension which remains important in certain socio-economic circles and historical adhesions make it difficult to have a clear reading of the trends current policies.
Especially since the historical bases of the so-called traditional parties continue to crumble with each general election. Those of November 2019 were also interesting from this point of view.
The MSM and its allies had achieved a majority with 37% of the votes, which was a low score compared to previous majorities. Indeed, on closer inspection, it takes on average 45% of the votes to be able to constitute a solid majority in the National Assembly.
Several factors determined the results of the 2019 general elections, and the fact that a majority was achieved with less than 40% of the votes cast. The fact that these same elections had not been a fight between two large alliance blocs but a three-way fight had necessarily already laid the foundations for a downward decline in the scores.
Thus, the MSM and its allies, the alliance between the PTr and the PMSD on one side, and the MMM presenting itself, de facto oriented the outcome of the vote.
In addition, the positioning of certain new parties or certain independent candidates also influenced the results, scraping into the historical basins of certain parties and thus making it possible to narrow the margins.
This was the case for candidates like Patrick Belcourt, Oliver Thomas and Eric Guimbeau, all three of whom received scores exceeding 3,000 votes in constituencies 19, 20 and 17 respectively.
These scores, combined with the splitting of the votes into three large parts, were enough to shake up the situation, and produce much tighter gaps than usual.
This explains, for example, how certain candidates held on tight, with gaps of less than 50 votes between third and fourth in certain cases. If we add to this the record abstention rate of 22.5%, we see that 7 out of 10 voters did not vote for the government majority.
This unprecedented fact is the consequence of triangular elections in our ‘First-Past-The-Post’ (FPTP) system, inherited from the British Westminster tradition, which could continue to be pushed to its limits.
In other words, the FPTP system could produce the ludicrous situation where one party could obtain a solid majority in the National Assembly with a tiny minority of votes. This scenario seems like madness, but current political trends tend towards this, and the logic of the FPTP inherently allows it.
What is certain is that the combination of the erosion of bases, the emergence of new parties capable of winning a few hundred votes and abstention produces a situation which will only tend towards the limits of the FPTP system.
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