Africa-Press – Mauritius. It goes without saying that the Constitution of our country has proven itself against all odds since 1968, when it gained independence. However, in recent years, several abuses on the political level have forced a certain number of trade unionists, observers of Mauritian society and committed citizens to react to a lack of action to counter embezzlement of all kinds. This week, Jack Bizlall, trade unionist and man of action, gives us his unfiltered observations.
There are several political systems in the world but how does the Mauritian political system work? What dysfunctions have we observed after the general elections in our country so that the majority of the Mauritian population no longer believes in the integrity of the political class? At the origin of the movement for a second Constitution and author of several publications on the subject, Jack Bizlall offers an educational approach to educate readers about his project to reform the Constitution.
It focuses particularly on a major problem: abstention in elections. If this act is a symbolic way for citizens to express their disagreement with the political class and the mentality that so corrupts it today, is it possible to consider another option?
How do you see politics in the upcoming elections? Jack Bizlall: There are two ways of looking at things when it comes to elections. The majority of citizens are conditioned by the system of representation of their power by a political party, to be tomorrow under the yoke of a government and, worse, of a single man acting as Prime Minister or as President of the Republic.
In a letter dated August 19, 2023 addressed to the leaders of the announced alliance of the PTr, the MMM and the PMSD, I confronted them with their responsibilities by evoking three possibilities in the context of the elections in Mauritius.
(1) A political party or political alliance rules our country through the President of the State.
This possibility exists in our current Constitution if the Leader of a political party is appointed President by the Prime Minister who is himself appointed by this leader who would thus control the parliamentary majority and thus the Cabinet.
The Prime Minister would only be an executor of the President’s policy. This could have happened to us in 2014. Today we would be in the Presidential Republic.
(2) A political party (as is the MSM) is owned by a family who appoints the leader of that party.
Thus, in power, the Prime Minister appoints the President of the Republic who is his follower (figuratively speaking, it is a person who, without critical thinking, only follows what the Prime Minister dictates to him).
We would be (and already are) in a parliamentary monarchy – a remainder of our 1968 Constitution. Such a Prime Minister can control all our institutions.
The life of a member of Parliament is already untenable with the current Speaker. (3) The 2024 (?) elections will be held under our current Constitution BUT with an announced plan to move to a new Constitution.
There are already two projects: that of revising our electoral system and that of perfecting the structures of our administration. You have already received two outstanding texts.
I submit to you another publication entitled “Our Constitutional Errors” published by the Rosa Luxembourg Institute. “ We will act in several ways. We must push towards a Second Republic.
Everything will have to be done in this direction. * Your strategy is to act, to put pressure, to raise awareness, to propose. But what program is this based on?
I say it and I say it again: the question is above all to know what changes the different political groups will propose. Voters must be guided by the principle of universal claims applied to all. I identify four main complaints:
(a) That we move to another constitution, that is to say a New Constitution for which the May Day Movement (MPM) has been fighting since its creation, and this, supported by multiple publications.
This is not an easy question to resolve, hence my participation in a group made up of three professionals in the field and also three former parliamentarians.
(b) In relation to the economy, it is absolutely necessary to place the economy at the service of society.
We must not separate them or place the economy first under the control of the capitalists since this policy protects the capitalist class; it is the masses who pay the price with poverty wages and repressive laws.
Look at what is happening in France. This policy plays into the hands of populists on both the right and the left. For example, it is essential to separate personal private property from social private property.
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