Mauritius - Elections 2000 - Sustainable Democracy

Although Mauritius' independent electoral supervisory bodies make no provision for internal or external election monitors or observers, an exception has been made for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Parliamentary Forum of which Mauritius is a member.

As 11 parliamentarians from the region arrived late last night, the mission's co-ordinator, Kasuka Mutukwa, the Forum's secretary-general, thanked the now-dissolved parliament for "bending" its rules to accommodate the observer mission.

Some 793,000 Mauritians go to the polls Monday and it will be the first time since the island nation became independent from Britain in 1968 that an official mission has been allowed to officially observe elections.

The law here prohibits anyone from coming closer than 200 m from polling stations in the 21 constituencies (20 on the main island and one on Rodrigues Island, 650 km offshore) except officials, police, registered voters and accredited journalists. However, an exception has been made for the Forum members.

The only official observers are the very strictly independent chair and members of the Electoral Supervisory Commission and the equally independent Electoral Commissioner who runs elections. Their mandate is to "supervise and observe" the elections and submit a report to President Cassim Uteem. They are in a sense domestic observers.

In Mauritius the president is not elected by universal suffrage but by the House of Assembly and his term continues through the election until 2002 when it may be extended or a new president elected by the House of Assembly.

Mutukwu and some of his mission members held a press conference today (Saturday) to brief local media on the Forum's role as an inter-parliamentary organization composed of 12 structures representing 1,800 Members of Parliament in southern Africa.

"The Forum comes to Mauritius as part of its regional election observation programme which began in 1999 with elections in Namibia and Mozambique and continued with the Zimbabwe parliamentary polls in June this yea," he said.

The observation mission includes 11 MPs from Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Seychelles, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

"As a member of SADC and the Forum, Mauritius holds the distinction of being one of the oldest democracies in the region and the African continent. The country presents many perspectives to competitive politics that other countries can draw a leaf from," Mutukwu said.

He identified the block system of voting where each voter must select three candidates in each constituency, except Rodrigues which has two, for 62 elected MPS plus the maximum of eight "best losers" which ensures "fair and adequate representation from each community."

Mutukwu said the mission would share its findings and recommendations with government, political parties, civic and media representatives in an interim report soon after the results are announced on Tuesday afternoon and a final report to the plenary of the Forum later this year.

"We will operate within the bounds of Mauritian electoral and constitutional laws and regulations and apply regionally and internationally recognized standards of electoral practice." (SARDC)