On the Forthcoming General Elections
As
you know, Sunday, 06 October 2019, the Prime Minister Pravind
Jugnauth announced as a Breaking News the dissolution of the
parliament and fixed the date of the general elections on 07 November
2019. He made this announcement after he made the launch of the
Metro Express on Thursday, 03 October 2019 which was funded by the
Government of India, and after a live speech from India by Prime
Minister Narendra Modi. It is right after the launch that Pravind
Jugnauth - according to the instructions from his Gurus and
counsellors - without thinking, on Sunday the 06 October 2019 in the
afternoon made this announcement. By doing so, he applied his
authority with such arrogance and announced the political
registration for 3 days: Wednesday, 09 October to Friday, 11 October,
and the Nomination Day on 22 October, and he fixed the date of the
general elections on Thursday, 07 November 2019. He had plenty of
time to announce the general election until March or April of next
year.
He
ignored dates such as 01 and 02 November which are public holidays,
as well as the 03 November that falls on a Sunday, but instead, he
chooses another day [in the middle of the week]. A panic and great
fear took hold of him, lest he loses in the upcoming election, thus
losing this power, especially with so many scandals in his
government. So, on 06 October he announced the elections for the 7th
day of November. He only gave a delay of one month to hold the
general elections. He does not give the other political parties time
to prepare themselves properly. It is true that after five years
(2014-2019) the National Assembly must be dissolved by the end of
December 2019. I do not want to go into details on this subject, but
what is deplorable is that the date chosen for the elections falls on
a Thursday where there are exams that will take place on that day for
the School Certificate (SC) and Higher School Certificate (HSC)
students. So, on 06 October, the day of the announcement, the
Election Commission officials had to find alternative places so as
not to disturb the conduct of these examinations.
So,
out of 9,41,719 voters, 104,903 voters will have to vote on 07
November in a different place from where they are used to. These are
tactics that he [the current Prime Minister] is using so that young
students of the SC and HSC do not have time to think about which
political party they are going to vote for because they have to focus
on their final exams which are very important.
Students
who have exams scheduled will be very worried on election day where
there will be a lot of traffic jams and so they may be late in their
exam rooms. The vagueness persists a lot on this case. Young students
of voting age show their disagreement and anger and say that the
government has not thought about all this and then everyone will not
have the chance to vote and that’s a shame.
In
addition, traffic jams will certainly affect the candidates
[students]. All of this will have a negative effect on their
schedule. Other candidates say that it is a bad choice to hold the
elections the same day as the exams, because the votes of the young
people are very important.
For
me (the Khalifatullah) the right to vote is to have the future of
Mauritius in hand so that it does not fall into wrong hands. So all
voters must make good choices, without the slightest trace of
communalism. They have to go to the polls, they have to fulfill their
civic right to elect people who are honest, and who are not corrupt
and who are respectable, so as to have a better future, a better
Mauritius, a clean Mauritius for our future generations.