| | L’économie électorale | | | | Modifier la taille du texte: | A | | | A | | |
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| | Par:- Rabin BHUJUN
On 18/10/2009 |
Toucherons-nous le jackpot ? Le dernier budget d’un gouvernement est souvent synonyme de largesses et de cadeaux divers. Tous susceptibles d’aider le bon peuple à réaliser que le gouvernement sortant tient à son bien-être. Et que le pouvoir en place mérite donc d’être réélu. Le budget que Rama Sithanen, le ministre des Finances, présente le 18 novembre obéit aux impératifs des « electoral economics ». L’enjeu, c’est l’installation d’un sentiment de bien-être national qui permettra à l’équipe de Navin Ramgoolam de se faire réélire le plus confortablement possible.
Rama Sithanen dira toutefois que le gouvernement n’a pas à avoir recours à un budget généreux pour remporter les élections. Car il pense que l’électorat saura apprécier les résultats de l’action gouvernementale dans divers domaines. Selon Sithanen, les réformes et la bonne gestion économique en temps de crise ont permis au pays de connaître une croissance économique tout à fait respectable (2,7 %) dans un contexte difficile. Une performance économique saluée par nos bailleurs de fond internationaux. Mais nos bailleurs de fonds ne votent pas… Et les points de croissance laissent finalement assez indifférent le citoyen lambda !
On en revient donc à l’économie électorale et à ses cycles. Notamment la séquence 3/2 des mandats de 5 ans. Marqués par 3 premières années d’austérité suivies de 2 années de générosité. Des travaux d’universitaires ont parfois eu tendance à démontrer que l’économie électorale et le cycle des budgets politiques sont surtout l’apanage de « nouvelles démocraties. » Les chercheurs soulignent même que l’économie électorale peut ne pas produire les résultats escomptés pour les gouvernements sortants.
Malgré tout, la tentation reste forte. Les dirigeants politiques de grandes – et vielles - démocraties cèdent également. Ainsi George W. Bush et Richard Nixon sont tous deux connus pour avoir fait flamber les dépenses sociales dans le but de s’attirer les faveurs de l’électorat vers la fin de leur mandat. Le Chancelier de l’échiquier anglais, Kenneth Clarke, avait, lui, consenti à d’importants allégements fiscaux. Ce qui n’avait pas empêché l’arrivée au pouvoir de Tony Blair en 1997. La question est donc posée. Ramgoolam et Sithanen vont-ils céder à la tentation ?
Pour le moment, il semble que Sithanen ne soit pas en train de pencher pour une grande opération fer labous dou. Le Premier ministre et ses autres camarades du cabinet ne semblent pas non plus faire pression pour que Sithanen aille dans ce sens. Il y a deux explications à ce calme apparent
à la veille du dernier budget de ce gouvernement.
Premièrement, cette apparente sérénité traduit la confiance qui y règne. En effet, bien de ministres, et sans doute le Premier ministre lui-même, sont convaincus que les prochaines élections sont tout à fait gagnables. Moyennant plus de présence sur le terrain une habile mise en valeur du
bilan du gouvernement. Mais aussi un travail de sape méthodique envers l’opposition désunie. Qui souffre d’un déficit d’image auprès de la population qui ne semble pas vouloir la considérer comme une alternative crédible à l’équipe en place.
Ensuite, il se pourrait en fait que le gouvernement ait déjà élaboré son calendrier pour marquer les esprits à l’approche des élections générales. C’est Rama Sithanen qui en a luimême donné l’indication. Il faut prendre la mesure de ce que le ministre des Finances entend par
« investissements massifs » dans les infrastructures. Nous arrivons en effet à ce moment crucial où certains chantiers sont sur le point d’être complétés, alors que d’autres – annoncés depuis des années - démarrent en grande pompe.
Si nous prenons pour postulat que les élections auront lieu mi-2010, il y a fort à parier que les six mois à venir seront tous dévolus à une « opération inauguration » sans précédent. En effet, les travaux d’infrastructure en cours ou à venir concernent des secteurs emblématiques : routes, eau, télécoms, éducation et santé. Le citoyen lambda a tendance à scruter les avancées dans ces domaines. Afin d’évaluer leur influence sur sa vie et celle de ses proches. C’est sur la base de ce raisonnement que certains gouvernements obtiennent le précieux label populaire : « Zot finn devlop pey la. » C’est ce label qui a assuré les succès électoraux d’Anerood
Jugnauth.
Reste maintenant au gouvernement à obtenir le même label. Pour cela, il ne faut pas trop compter sur Sithanen. Il est excellent technicien mais mauvais communiquant. Son langage inaccessible aux non-initiés l’empêche souvent de pouvoir bien expliquer la portée populaire de certaines de ses
mesures budgétaires. L’obtention du label ne passera donc probablement pas par lui. Mais par Dan Callikan ! L’ancien conseiller de Ramgoolam, maintenant aux commandes de la MBC, sera de facto le grand ordonnateur de l’immense opération de communication. Qui visera à traduire en mots, en images et en ressenti toutes les mesures annoncées par Sithanen. D’ici les prochaines élections, des centaines de reportages vanteront les bienfaits de tel ou tel projet initié ici ou là. Des dizaines de personnes seront interviewées. Toutes diront combien l’action du gouvernement est favorable à eux, à leurs enfants ou à leur voisinage. L’économie électorale est bien vivante. Elle est en marche. Pour la voir, branchez-vous sur la MBC !
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| Jean | | | Will better communication from Sithanen make us believe that making us poor is good? | | | FROM: PAYGO. | | | From: “Paygo”
Budget: temptation to play fast and loose with deficit rules will be greatest during the recovery period.
Une performance économique saluée par nos bailleurs de fond internationaux. Mais nos bailleurs de fonds ne votent pas… Et les points de croissance laissent finalement assez indifférent le citoyen lambda ! VACUUM in debate over country budget has been the one of the biggest drains on our resources. Therefore, many residents should tell that a pre budget review be submit for a thorough, professional review as to usefulness and cost. The budget show with which residents are assailed is the biggest bugaboo ever invoked. One could go on and on because the same functional and financial analysis applies to most of ministries. In truth, the ministries that provide direct services to residents are the police, fire, public works, public service (badly), parks and recreation (also inefficiently), building and zoning and parking. Who can deny the statement that the country wouldn’t function well with a professional, honest professional. The Every thing is perfect comment sounds as if it's written by a high school sophmore, kicking and screaming because mom and dad won't give him the keys to the car. There’s plenty to improve in this year's proposed budget.
We need to express and debate differences. Elections and other legal processes, including public records requests, are tools to influence public discourse. Judges play a valued role but don't always decide with the filers, and they take their own time to issue their rulings. Debate ought to be civil. Some insightful quote: A famous French economist by the name of Frederic Bastiat once suggested that when social policies turn out to be harmful to the citizenry, it is because politicians often react to economic problems that they can see, without any regard for the unforeseen consequences of their solutions to those problems." -- Jack Chambless "Politicians love visible beneficiaries and invisible victims." -- Dr. Walter Williams . "Politicians, like bombers, seldom see their victims..." -- Donald Boudreaux, in his article, "Lossing Touch". In all fairness, Dr. Boudreaux also says, "Friends of liberty do their cause no favors by exaggerating the moral shortcomings of politicians or by portraying them as inherently stupid, fiendish, or sinister." "Okay then, how about misguided, careless, amoral, desperate or blind?" -- Dan Jergens "Politicians are notoriously economically illiterate. And even when they know what would be the right thing, we don't really expect them to do it." -- Harry Browne. Mauritius budget is a microcosm of what is occurring nationally. Politicians attempt to provide extensive projects, and engage in deficit spending. The government can engage directly in deficit spending, but since Mauritius must balance its budget, it borrows money through the sale of bonds to make up the deficit. Obviously that is not a true balanced budget, but politicians have made it an accepted practice. In this case, however, Mauritius engaged in true deficit spending by issuing IOU’s. (Can you imagine what might happen if a taxpayer tried to issue an IOU to the state!?). Mauritius is also a model for the politics of taxation. In “The (induced) Ignorance of Power”, the politics of taxation are such that the voter is made to believe someone else is going to pay the tax. Vote for the politician, and he or she will use government to care for all your needs, while someone else pays the bill.
The most common and easiest political sell is the Robin Hood approach. Tax the successful to give to the poor, assuming achievers will work just as hard regardless of how high their taxes are. This was clearly the politics followed in Mauritius, but unfortunately it is a flawed concept. As a primary result of onerous taxes, 2,000 people leave Mauritius. Mauritius is one on the most business unfriendly state, businesses entrepreneurs leaving Mauritius on a wholesale basis. There is as yet no comprehensive asset declaration from aspiring and elected politicians. While they press for patriotism and return of the Diaspora, wiping the HSC laureates scheme- their offspring elect to work in European cities as accountants, or world bank consultants. There is a saying that, “Socialism works, until you run out of someone else’s money”. This is clearly the case in Mauritius. Just consider the tax schemes that average citizen has to pay- VAT, income tax, NRPT, tax on interest, indirect tax, tax call charges for private sector employees, just to mention those salient ones., . Business people do not have fixed incomes and when a recession hits, the tax base collapses. Even though the socialist or Robin Hood theme has been shown repeatedly to be unsustainable, that does not diminish the political appeal. Promises to end the deficit by taxing the rich. Then the economic crash came in Oct. ’08, and he promised to fix the economy with a stimulus financed by increased taxes on the investor class. Recently, when it has become clear that approach has been a deterrent to investment, he declared, “We underestimated the recession” (and intimated another stimulus might be required). This is not meant to infer that more skillful handling of the economy would have ended the recession by now. But rather it is a fundamental mistake to raise taxes during a recession. (This is like saying you’re going to take up smoking to improve your health. It is totally counter-productive.) Unlike the average citizen, the powerful and well connected does have a trump card, in that if a taxpayer chooses to vote with their feet and move to a country with lower taxes. Any independent study will show that substantial Mauritian savers have moved their personal accounts overseas. Strong or weak rupee makes no impact on the fat cats –in case of a wish-list- I think you would be safe in betting your entire fortune that the politicians are paid first and in US dollars. That would be priority 1 with them. Budget policy over the last dozen years has been a laboratory for testing which rules work in a political environment and which rules don't work. I believe that the temptation to play fast and loose with deficit rules will be greatest during the recovery period. When the economy is stagnant, politicians will have little choice but to waive the balanced budget rule. But when growth resumes and economic worries recede, they will be pressured to get rid of the deficit, even if it is extremely difficult or impossible to do so. As the deficit recedes, pressure to balance the budget will escalate. Device used by states to balance their books is to sell assets, record the proceeds as current revenue, and thereby make their financial condition appear better than it actually is. Some states sell assets to their own off-budget corporations. The state can sell anything this way—prisons, highways, loan assets, etc.—whether or not there is a market, and the state can dictate the sales price. Asset sales are part of a larger state practice—using non-recurring revenue (known as "one shots") to close the revenue-expenditure gap. Sadly the case is politicians cannot maintain fiscal discipline. My view, however, is that only political action can ensure true budgetary discipline; if politicians want to spend more than they take in, they will find the means to do so, even when the Constitution purports to dictate otherwise. This is the humble lesson.
. | | | eric | | | Hi Rabin. It would appear you've bolted out of the stall before starter's order. Is the country ready for a change? With so many political parties MMM, MSM, Ptr ,MMXD, FCM, UN,MR,VF enough as an example The electorate can not decide who to support till the bed partners have made themselves known. If the parties stay "single" you'll have a hung parliament. Opinion polls are not reliable, like ststistics they hide the essentials and give us ideas, there are very few reliable rules in politics, but one of them is that whenever consensus emerges on any given issue it's almost invariably wrong. | | | Starbright | | | For your information Mr Bhujun,Richard Nixon was the guy who was working on out ending the Vietnam war started by John F Kennedy and carried out by Lyndon B Johnson.Gerald Ford succeeded Nixon after the Watergate Scandal and ended the war in 1975.The Vietnam war really started by the french in the 50s.As far as President George W Bush is concerned, he was just unlucky and was at the wrong place at the wrong time when Al Qaeda attacked the US by hijacking innocent passenger planes and crashed them against the twin towers,Pentagon etc.It was just a retaliation from Mr George Bush, i would have done the same. Wouldn't you mr Bhujun?. | | | Chokra | | | So according to your "enlightenedt" mind the citoyen lambda cannot distinguish between what is good for him/her and what is bad. It is only poor communication that is failing the government because Sithanen and Mansoor are technically so gifted that they cannot be challenged on rational grounds. What non-partisan citizens are saying is Sithanen c'est une arnaque! Please give Mauritius a break with such oft-repeated babble. | |
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