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Revival of the Labour party goes by way of modernisation

19 février 2016, 09:01

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lexpress.mu | Toute l'actualité de l'île Maurice en temps réel.

 

The author belives that local politicians should avoid the concept of ‘‘till death do us part’’ because political loyalists and enemies are two sides of the same coin.

 

According to the author, the Labour party needs to rebuild itself by injecting new blood amidst its old guard. This might give the party a distinctive edge over its rivals and pave the way to its revival.

Any government, fresh from a general election, normally goes through a life cycle. First, there is fascination and admiration. Half way through, disillusionment begins to creep in. And in the final leg, it draws contempt. No government can claim to hold a recipe for electoral victory and stay in power for a longer stretch of time. That’s because in a democracy voters are driven by eccentric, resentful and ruthless impulses.

Examples abound in voters springing surprises. In British politics, Winston Churchill, an acclaimed warhero in World War II, faced a sensational defeat when the 1945 general election was  called. In Mauritius, voters made no compromise when they had to bring down a party leader or a prime minister. The “Father of the  Nation” himself was no exception as he was inflicted a defeat in his own fiefdom in 1982. If voters’ volatile behavior is something to reckon with, then, can the Mauritius Labour party, decimated in the last general election, bounce back?

At this juncture, more than a year after the drubbing it received, the fallen Labour party still seems to be licking its wounds. There is not the slightest sign that it is a party with an ambition keen to regain power in four  years’ time. Perhaps, now in wilderness, it is a good opportunity for the party to take stock and reflect seriously about a new narrative.

First, nothing can change the Labour party unless a rejuvenation of its management team is envisaged. This means flushing out those actual “fellow travellers” who have proved to be more of a liability than an asset to the party. More so, the time now is appropriate when the party is celebrating 80 years of its existence and will be centenarian in the not too distant future. Now is the time for the party to undergo a thorough facelift. A party with a life span of 80 years is pretty much of an indication that even in the most trying of circumstances as, for example in the tectonic electoral landslide in 1982, it can maintain a foothold in the electorate.

Indeed, the challenges facing the Labour party are multiple. One of them is public confidence deficit. Rebuilding a new image looks like an uphill task in the immediate term after some alleged malpractices had been exposed . These alleged malpractices will occupy people’s minds for quite some time but will also serve as a fodder for arguments to attack the party. What is needed is a thorough overhauling by inducting talented new blood in the leadership team with a new approach to politics. This move will be salutary as it will give the party a fresh lease of life.

But that task is not as easy because of the Labour’s rooted culture. The party in its desire to please everyone since the time of Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam finds it hard, for instance, to give the marching orders to the old guard and selfish hangers-on usually gravitating round the ‘leader’ for their own personal interest. In politics, it should not be forgotten, so-called political ‘loyalists’ and political ‘enemies’ are two sides of the same coin. SSR’s government in the 1976s could have been toppled by a ‘loyalist’ from within.

With a knack of attracting opponents by his kiss of death, SSR secured his position by getting four MMM parliamentarians to jump over to his side with promises for a ministerial position. But people were tired of the Labour government which by then was running out of steam and still more they were exacerbated with seeing again and again the same unwanted faces standing for election in 1982 in contrast with the younger elements fielded by the MMM-PSM.

It was, as if, in a fit of rage that the electorate voted against the Labour party. SSR, it seemed, would rather fall on the electoral battlefield together with his party’s old comrades-in-arms whom he trusted than ditching them. This is why the party was reduced to shreds. It was failure to innovate that led to the debacle.

In Mauritian politics, old and senior party members love politics “till death do us part”, to use a Shakespearean expression. True, political corpses from time to time keep resurfacing to enjoy a political incarnation but this is a weakness in parties’ organisations which if not cured does not warrant any party an enduring success. Local politics is in stark contrast with the UK where leaders whose parties are discredited by the electorate gracefully step down making way for new incumbents as, for example, was the case recently with Ed Miliband being replaced by Jeremy Corbyn at the helm of British Labour party.

Until and unless the front rank leadership team of the Mauritius labour party gives way to a new set of young individuals combining realism with vision, unburdened by shady and dubious past and having the traits to emerge as future leaders, the party is bound to stagnate. In its current state, it cannot do much. A new Labour party should be in tune with the aspirations of the population. It means offering a blueprint for changes that would give a distinctive edge over its rivals for the benefit of the population and the country at large.

It would be erroneous to harp with nostalgia on past achievements. That would be churning out barren rhetoric with little or absolutely no meaning to the younger generation. The ideologies and grand doctrines of the 50s and 60s were relevant then. But it has been taken over today by what is termed as pragmatism. It is realism that matters.

In England, Tony Blair’s realism paid off when he transformed the ailing Labour party into New Labour offering something more different, shedding the baggage of ‘left’ and ‘right’ that distinguished political parties, by paving the ‘Third Way’. Labour under Blair then went on to win three consecutive general elections after having sat eighteen years in opposition. The political texture is changing. Modernising the ageing Mauritius Labour party into a new and credible organisation is key to its revival.