Réforme électorale : Bérenger «triste» que le MSM et le MMM laissent «passer une occasion»

www.ionnews.mu "We won't vote." The MMM leader insisted on reiterating: the Purple parliamentarians will not vote for the electoral reform bill. Paul Bérenger said he was "sad" that once again, the MSM and the Party of the Heart—although not in government—will miss another opportunity to overhaul our political system. "I heard rumors that the government would amend its proposals," noted the leader of the Purple. He continued: but these rumors remain, given the interventions of Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth and Minister Mentor Sir Anerood Jugnauth. Affable, good-natured, and a good teacher, Paul Bérenger first donned his historian's garb for a "short trip down memory lane." The goal of the lecture: to review the history of elections in Mauritius before and after independence, as well as the origins of the Best Loser System (BLS). His remarks were measured, the man pleasant, sometimes smiling as he recalled what might have been when the MSM and MMM were in power. But "I said we didn't have a mandate" to remove the BLS at the time, Paul Bérenger recalled. The heart-sun alliance therefore did not persist on this path. He disagrees with Sir Anerood Jugnauth, who listed a series of countries where the First Past the Post principle would be applied. The mentor minister is mistaken, Bérenger calmly corrects him: there is a dose of proportional representation everywhere. Mauritius, he continues, is the only country in the world where a dose of proportional representation that is "too low" and "something else" is introduced to correct the proportional representation. And he adds: "If we carry out a reform, it is to correct it; we cannot undo what we have just done." "I know I won't be able to convince Sir Anerood," but Bérenger insisted nonetheless: no electoral system guarantees political stability. And if the mentor minister seems obsessed with proportional representation, perhaps he should travel to Rodrigues less often, joked the MMM leader. The Rodrigues example, an "obsession" that SAJ uses to demonstrate the risks inherent in proportional representation, is not one, asserted Bérenger. There is "a real problem" with the BLS, declared the MMM leader. However, he maintains his opposition to the ethnic census, which would be a "dramatic step backward," while distinguishing it from the decennial population census. On this point, he echoed certain arguments put forward earlier by Adrien Duval of the PMSD. Moreover, the ethnic census is "contested" and "outdated": the four categories currently recognized by the Constitution are no longer applicable. "But if we divide, where do we stop?" Fear and anxiety are real among "certain sections" of the population, Bérenger believes, among whom the spectre of 1948, when no Muslim or Chinese-Mauritian was elected, still lingers. What is being proposed to replace the BLS reassures no one. We must "listen to the population," Bérenger pleaded. They find it regrettable that female representation and the anti-defector measure are integral parts of a reform that will not pass. When they could have been presented separately. And like Adrien Duval earlier, the leader of the Mauves expressed surprise that the government did not want to make public the Electoral Supervisory Commission's report on the reform. -- Subscribe to ION News HERE https://goo.gl/3LQqGn FOLLOW US Facebook: https://goo.gl/H48iox Instagram: https://goo.gl/JtE3b5 Twitter: https://goo.gl/NJe7Z9