Excellente Idee. Cela permettrait de voir (s'ils existent) les vrais mauriciens parmis nos politiciens...

Mr. Forget votre solution est interessante mais pas applicable car trop compliquee. il existe une autre solution qui est plus simple dont absolument personne ne songe mais qui serait la solution de facto a tous nos problemes racistes. Il faudrait d'abord faire elire nos deputes sur une liste proportionelle integrale. Tous les deputes elus sont des deputes mauriciens, un point c'est tout. Une fois elus, nous affectons nos deputes dans leur circonscription par tirage au sort. Ceci a pour consequence 2 choses tres importantes. !) On aumentera la probabilite d'avoir un depute Creole a Plaine-verte ou un depute Musulman a triolet. Chaque depute, quelque soit sa communaute peut se retrouver a travailler pour les des mauriciens dans n'importe quelle circonscription, quelque soit sa couleur communale ou religieuse. 2)On elimine le system de prebendes entre un depute et ses constituants. Ce systeme evite qu'un depute reste trop longtemps dans une meme cisconscription ce qui favorise les "give and take" clienteliste..Bien-sur les partis politiques doivent presenter chacun leur liste et faire en sorte que toutes les communautes soient representees et soit en position eligible de maniere equitable sur chacune de leur liste. Il peut y a voir un premier control sur la validite de ces listes qui peut etre fait par un organisme independent Nous pouvons dans le meme garder le BSL comme verrou de securite sachant que si le systeme marche ce verrou sera inutile sur le long terme. Personne ne pense au systeme de tirage au sort qui a existe au temps des Atheniens en Grece il y a 2000 ans. Concernant le systeme electoral, aucun homme politique mauricien n'a la stature, l'autorite et l'independence d'esprit pour "think outside the box" parceque ils ont tous la tete dans le guidon communal et ils veulent tous un systeme qui va favoriser leur electorat sur un autre. Pourtant ce systeme est tellement simple et genial cree par les Grecs les inventeurs de la democratie.

Mr Forget, as a mauritian I got the same agenda as yours to drive mauritius in the new world, my comments on your article is you have missed the basic concept of democracy, if we want a second republic we need to focus on three main issues that we are facing from our independance -
1. Those who lose an election still represent himself as Prime Minister for the next election
2 Alliances between parties can be made before the poll
3 Any MP can pass to another party during their mandate
If we can solve these issues I guarantee you that we can go for a second republic, remember most mauritian are in favour of removing BLS in our constitution but with what I mentioned above we should go to a referendum first and this is the main tool for democracy we we can gather the opinion of the citizen, up to now noone metion Referendum in their blogs.
We have seen in the past what happened to most African states they have become dictatorship states fortunately some of them are changing.
I feel we are also in the move of a dictatorship state because no politicians value democracy

I PERFECTLY AGREE WITH THE COMMENT BY JAY SINCE YOU CAN'T COMPARE TWO MISERABLE PEOPLE AND CONCLUDE THAT ONE IS HAPPIER THAN THE OTHER (Plato). IF WE FIND SOLUTIONS TO THESE THREE ISSUES RAISE BY JAY, THEN WE CAN GO TOWARDS A REFERENDUM FOR A SECOND REPUBLIC OR WHATEVER !

Mr. Forget, we appreciate very much your concern and interest about politics. The population has another problem where you can help us. How come the savings rate is 4.5 % and lending rate is 12%. The solution will be a Best Winner system. merci.

Mr Forget, you may not like what I have to say but I'll say it anyway.

In Mauritius, minorities are not worth much. There is wide spread discrimination between people who are different. Heck, there is even discrimination between people who are alike (caste system).

Currently, minorities don't have rights. Example: creoles are discriminated against. Not one creole is employed in the government, perhaps a few now with the help of XLD.

Muslims are discriminated against as well but because the current PM is an islamophile he has taken them in. Unlike the previous PM who openly bashed them.

My point Mr Forget is this: in any country with substantial minorities, there are guarantees that their rights will be protected. There are institutions such as Human Rights organisations to safeguard against abuses. God knows how vile human beings can be when they don't like someone. You ought to know that Sir.

Any electoral reform must also bring in some iron-clad guarantees that the rights of the minorities will be protected.

The first amendment to be voted in should be an employment equity system where every company above a threshold of employees must have fair representation of all communities. Would the big corporations allow that? If so, I'm packing my bags and head back on the next plane.

Article trs interessant... Moi je crois dans le mauricianisme avant tout. Je me moque quel personne de quel type de communaut dirige. L'importance c'est qu'il est comptent point barre. Si aujourd'hui une ethnie est peu representatif dans certains domaine ou corps de l'tat cela releve plus de la politique corrompu ficel avec des organisations socio-religieuses, avec la bndiction de l'lectorat qui vote et regarde inlassablement les mmes qui ont maintes fois prsents leur candidatures juste pour leur bien tres. La faute c'est nous la population... on rcolte ce qu'on sme. Cest soi-disant dputs ou ministres sont plus efficaces pour leur performances d'acteur qu' rsoudre les problmes du pays.

With all due respect Mr Forget, your article is fundamentally flawed. Let me explain: The elimination/ removal/ disappearance of the compartimentage (to borrow from you) or the 4 defined Communities as per section 5 of the First Schedule of the Constitution with a view to correct any imbalance in community representation in parliament, WILL NOT BRING ABOUT/ INCREASE MAURITIANISM in our landscape. Le Mauricianisme,however defined, is an abstract concept which mean a Million things to a Million people. Parliamentary Representation (by Elected MPs) is on the other hand, very real and it is based on REAL VOTES of the Electorates irrespective of the so-called Communal voting pattern of the population at large. Still Le Mauricianisme existe bel et bien dans le quotidian de tout les mauriciens comme la dmontr par lexemple de la question de Parking entre LEglise et la mosque de Grand Baie. Il y en a plusieurs dautre exemple parmi toutes religions ou communauts de Lile. Any attempt to CONSTRUCT Le Mauricianisme is bound to fail, no matter how good intention the effort may be ,because we do not know for real what Le Mauricianisme should be ( because everyone will differ on their own interpretation). However we know almost 100% what Le Mauricianisme SHOULD NOT BE? (Example: Faire des commentaires incendiaires lgard des autres communauts). But nothing stops us from increasing Le Mauricianisme dans nos quotidiens de Vivre-Ensemble. This is more possible than from a Theoritical/ Abstract Construction. It is also a fallacy that we can only promote Le Mauricianisme by complete suppression de la chose religion ou appartenance a une communaute. Je nai nul besoin dune description officielle (be it section 5 of the first Schedule or otehrwise) pour dmontrer du respect lgard de mes Co-citoyens. The BLS is a dichotomy in kind. It neither provides Minority community with any safeguard nor does it truly contribute to communalism . At best it truly a Red herring! Since you premise is similar to that of Lindsey Collen which I rebutted then, I attach the same below for ease of reference.*******

Ms Lindsey Collen made a passionate plea to understand and debate genuine proposals for electoral reform, proposals that respond specifically to the need to do away with the communalism in the Best Loser System. What exactly is meant by the communalism in the BLS has never been explained nor factually demonstrated. Suffice for its detractors to shout foul simply because the BLS is implemented by virtue of candidates declaring one of four ethnic or faith categories on their Election Nomination forms. The BLS is also deemed by the same detractors to be antithesis to the emergence of true Mauritianism and/or a Mauritian Identity. Notwithstanding that la chose communal do exist in all its variant forms in our political and societal landscape, but questions such as How Communal is the BLS per se and to what extent it contributes to Institutional communal practices within the State apparatus, has never been demonstrated by Lindsey or Lalit. We should remind ourselves that the BLS affects no more than 8 of our 70 MPs. In fact the Sachs Commission in 2002 recognised that from its inception in 1967, the BLS had a relatively weak impact on voting strength in Parliament. It is not part of a consociational scheme in terms of which the consent of designated communities had to be obtained to enable any Governmental measure to go ahead. On the other hand, these minority communities are at pain to demonstrate how the BLS has served their interests, let alone ensure a balanced community representation in Parliament that is not already the case from the representation that Minority Communities enjoy through the Block of 3 system within mainstream Political parties. So, whatever imbalance BLS was intended to correct from 1967 has been, for all intents and purposes, been very negligible but its perceived psychological impact and/or importance is massively beefed up by opponents and supporters alike. [NEXT POINT]- Lindseys Lalit is proposing an assembly of 84 directly elected on a FPTP basis plus an additional 20 Extra Non-communal Best Losers MPs purely based on Party Lines. Notice that Lalit is suggesting a total increase of 34 MPs compared with 30 from the Sachs commission. It is grossly incoherent in the current climate to increase the size of our Parliament with the increased costs that this will automatically entail. Already with 70 MPs we are having one hell of a task to keep them under control, let alone making them accountable. But the most incredible thing in Lalit proposal is that these 20 extra Best losers will be selected to address the imbalance of gender, class, rural-urban skewing, and wait for it : in particular , COMMUNITY !!! So Lalit will replace an 8-Member BLS based entirely on COMMUNITY criteria with a 20 Non-Communal Member BLS based in part on COMMUNITY! Flabbergastingly Charming and innovative of Lalit!

[NEXT POINT]- PARTY LIST CONCEPT: In reality, this mean: select candidates by Party Top Brass or Politburo, and then get them ratified by the voters! In practice, the list will be decided by the reigning King or the Emperor of the political Party with absolutely no consultation with either party members or Constituency members. This is the method using COMMUNAL CRITERIAS by which many candidates are presently parachuted at the 11th hour during recent elections. Who will dare challenge a decision taken by the King or Emperor?

**

Let us put the BLS enigma in context. The Assembly is made up of 70 Members of whom 62 are directly elected in 21 constituencies. The island of Mauritius is divided into 20 constituencies returning 3 members each and that of Rodrigues is a single constituency returning 2 members. After a general election, the Electoral Supervisory Commission may nominate up to a maximum of 8 additional members in accordance with section 5 of the First Schedule of the Constitution with a view to CORRECT ANY IMBALANCE IN COMMUNITY REPRESENTATION IN PARLIAMENT. This system of nominating members is commonly called the best loser system.

Question: When 8 MPs are nominated by the BLS, they are intended for all intents and purposes, to CORRECT THE IMBALANCE IN COMMUNITY REPRESENTATION.

Notice the word COMMUNITY REPRESENTATION. One minute, a candidate is representing his Political Party, irrespective of his community classification. When He/She is not elected by the voters, he/she then gets nominated by the BLS to correct the imbalance of HIS/ HER community representation. Suddenly he/she has been transformed from being an Agent/ CANDIDATE of his/her Political Party (and lost at the Election) to being a nominated MPs representing NOT a specific constituency but A COMPLETE COMMUNITY of the country!! END

Au fait, pourquoi le BLS? Pour prserver lintrt des minorits. Y-a-t-il eu une tude srieuse de faite pour dmontrer dans quelle mesure les politiciens ayant bnfici du BLS ont sauvegarde lintrt de telle ou telle minorit. En revanche, ce qui a permis a mon sens (aussi a dmontrer) de sauvegarder lunit nationale mme sil est loin dtre parfait, cest lquilibre entre la lacit et la religiosit. Si cest cela quon recherche, BLS ou pas, ca ne fait aucune diffrence.

La communaute des banquiers, rentiers, barons, courtiers, valets, freres etc. ? Moi prefere la communaute des Slim Cats!

The proposal to add a Mauritian category to the other four existing categories defined in the BLS is akin to throwing good money after bad. First, as the sum / synergy of the 4 defined communities, Mauritian is not distinct from them and therefore hardly qualifies as a new category. Second, what is the chance of the proposal securing 75% votes in the National Assembly to amend the BLS? Third, Point 3 conveys a misunderstanding on the objective of BLS, which is to correct for under-representation rather than awarding additional seats according to outcomes. In light of these and even more deficiencies in the rationale, best solution is to foreclose the BLS once and for all.

La proposition dEUROP DIDAC est trs intressante et demande tre amnager pour quon ne soit pas dans un systme de loterie en procdant par tirage au sort.
Pour un pays comme le notre, le changement du systme lectoral doit concerner lensemble des lections. (Gnrale, Municipale et Villageoise). La proportionnelle intgrale est lexpression par excellence de la dmocratie. Dans un espace si rduit, je pense que nous avons trop de dputs par rapport notre population. La proportionnelle sans dfinition de circonscription permettra denlever le clientlisme, car le dput sera responsable de son action au niveau national. Quand nous lisons un dput cest dabord pour la politique au sens noble, pour le pays et non dune circonscription. Sagissant de la circonscription, il relvera des autorits locales, cest llu de proximit, qui est le maire, le prsident du conseil de village, les conseillers, eux de faire entendre la voix ou la rclamation du citoyen et aussi au service public de faire ce travail. Le dput nest pas un roitelet install pour cinq ans, il est dans une action collective et son groupe doit rendre compte la population rgulirement. Trop dinformation tue linformation, il nest donc pas ncessaire de sadresser la presse chaque semaine si ce nest que la volont de communiquer et de faire des Buzz en permanence.
Enfin, il coule aussi de source que la reprsentation du peuple ne peut tre un mtier et en loccurrence, il faudra limiter le nombre de mandat de dput dans le temps. Il est anormal de constater que beaucoup occupent la place et se rendent incontournable et cela empchent le renouvellement et le progrs dmocratique de notre pays.

Eliminating BLS means deprived the minority rights. What system will come forward to guarantee their representation in the National Assembly. Should the majority rules always prevail and control all decisions that may comfort any ethnic group. Should they hve a better right to speak and decide for the minority. Its not communal to guarantee the right of any minority unless these rights are protected by the constitution itself. BLS is a sort of co-opted members in an assembly. What's wrong to make place for your fellow countryman to discuss, take decisions and live together in the spirit of brotherhood and fairness. Those who are strong should cater for the weak. Don't give a bad name to the weak because they have been elected taking into consideration their religious beliefs.
If we really wish to succeed think in terms of protection to our minority countryman. Show your trust to them.

"Je nai aucun agenda part celui de faire avancer mon pays", en en meme temps le pays avance assez bien sans aucune intervention (intentionelle ou pas) de M. P. Forget. Pour faire avance n'importe quoi dans la bonne direction il suffit de se mettre a l'oeuvre et contribuer directement quelque part au lieu de sans cesse composer des textes qui n'aboutissent nulle part. Mon cher Philippe stp sort de ton bureau pour une fois et fait qqchose de positif pour avancer notre petit pays!

Arlette

The Best Loser System (BLS) is enshrined in the Mauritian Constitution. Mauritian laws are written in English and English is also the official language of Mauritius. So that meanings may not be lost through translation or misunderstandings, this debate should really take place in English. It is very clear that terms are misused and misunderstood and a lot of verbiage is spent on irrelevancies. Mr Forget speaks of communalisme , a term which does not appear in Mauritian laws for one. Secondly, it is a misnomer and Mauritians should stop using this term. From the very outset, Mr Forget says: Je nai aucun agenda part celui de faire avancer mon pays . But he betrays himself immediately afterwards when he says : Mais sil faut absolument trouver un compromis BLS/ proportionnelle/ mauricianisme . Since mauricianisme is a French term, it would be better addressed in French because it emanates from other French concepts - Se cachant derrire la politique du BLS et la proportionnelle, il pousse lavant le mauricianisme, une politique discriminatoire manant du crolisme et du lacisme fabrique en France ; aucun agenda , mon il ! Mr Forget refers to quatre rfrences ridicules de notre Constitution , that is, Hindus and Muslims (2 religious identifications), Sino-Mauritian (identification by origin and ethnicity), and General Population (the remainder). What is ridiculous about being identified as a Hindu or Muslim or Sino-Mauritian? Those people fought to have their identities preserved while others rejected theirs. Where is Mr Forgets problem? No need trying to drown them under that RIDICULOUS appellation of MAURICIANISME he wants to impose upon Mauritians like the language imported from Haiti. Now, without further ado, for the purposes of the BLS, the Mauritian Constitution recognises THREE COMMUNITIES by their way of life (Hindus, Muslims and Sino-Mauritians). The candidate who does not wish to be so identified has to select General Population , which is a residual category. But, for administrative purposes, General population SHALL BE REGARDED AS A FOURTH COMMUNITY to which the way of life test does not apply. Those experts in the English language who say that a candidate is forced to declare his/her community are no experts at all. They just do not understand the language. To close this loophole, the government does not have to make it compulsory for a candidate to select General Population but rather explain on the registration form that the candidate who does not wish to be identified under the 3 communities will automatically be classified as OTHER (General Population) and excluded from consideration for BLS. Now, lets move on to COMMUNITY REPRESENTATION . Because the First Past the Post System (FPTP) is a defective system and produces anomalies in favour of the Hindu majority, the BLS system is designed to go some way in repairing this anomaly. The BLS does not affect the 62 elected candidates under FPTP; so there is no discrimination against them. It merely selects a maximum of 8 candidates with most votes from the identified minorities. The English expression COMMUNITY REPRESENTATION does not mean that the candidate will only represent his/her community, but means that the Mauritian Parliament should somehow reflect the population. The BLS can also be extended to include women. Hence, WOMEN REPRESENTATION would mean that Parliament should reflect the percentage of women in the population and not that women MPs would only represent women. However much I have explained this, there are still people who are persisting in the wrong direction and making a meal of it. Both BLS and PR are electoral reform systems. While the BLS identifies the community before the elections, the proposed PR will have to identify the candidates community after the elections. Both reform systems are community (not communal) based. But PR based on Party Lists where candidates are listed per the party leader stinks of corruption, racism, and more. Moreover, it shifts power from the people to political parties and should not even be considered by any government. As far as the comments of Singfat Chu are concerned, his name was mentioned in the January 2012 Sithanens discredited report, and I had challenged his simulations he carried out with Sithanen based on the same corrupt FPTP data, and I also challenged Sithanens use of the alleged Ordinary Least Square Electoral Reform Index formula with a mysterious inside the root sign, as well has his use of the DHondt formula which he completely misapplied. Remember, Sithanen only did his students thesis on Electoral Reform which is no big deal. He used corrupt FPTP election results instead of using census population data and build up his model using appropriate Social Science package, such as SPSSx. Sithanens report is flawed from start to finish. He thought that by citing big names, such as Chief Justice Bernard Sik Yeun, Sir Hamid Moolan, he could get it accepted. The BLS is a better system, by far. It should be expanded to include women.

TOTALLY AGREE WITH MR SOORMALLY. INCLUDING WOMEN REPRESENTATION IN THE BLS IS A WISE SUGGESTION. AMEND THE CONSTITUTION TO INCLUDE 15 CONSTITUENCIES OF 5 CANDIDATES PLUS 3 CANDIDATES FOR RODRIGUES INSTEAD OF 20 OF 3. A FAIR REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN CAN BE INCLUDED.