Does it matter?
Yesterday, the Electoral Commission announced seven best losers after the 2010 General Elections. As I wrote in one of my earlier posts, the algorithm used for selecting those lucky few is arcane and vague. In Week-End today, there is an article which attempts to explain how it works. One of these days, the best loser system will really need to be thrown away and replaced by something more logical (based on the concept of proportionality for example.)
Among the seven selected is Micheal Sik Yuen, a candidate of the Alliance de l’Avenir. His selection is causing a lot of controversy because, well, he declared he was a member of the General Population instead of Sino-Mauritian on nomination day. In our constitution, it is written that:
The population of Mauritius shall be regarded as including a Hindu community, a Muslim community and a Sino-Mauritian community; and every person who does not appear, from his way of life, to belong to one or other of those 3 communities shall be regarded as belonging to the General Population, which shall itself be regarded as a fourth community.
Appear? Way of life? Who judges?
It would seem that Michael Sik Yuen does not believe he appears to have the way of life of a Hindu, a Muslim and a Sino-Mauritian and, so, he becomes a de-facto a member of the General Population. (Wikipedia says that a Sino-Mauritian is an overseas Chinese who resides in Mauritius.)
Fair enough. It is how he sees himself which counts after all. I just hope he didn’t do that just to beat the system.
What do you think?
does the General Population actually take the constitution seriously?
The best loser system is clear: it divides the Mauritian population into two religions: Hindu and Muslim, one race: sino-mauritian and the rest. The Constitution is clear on this. For the case of Sik Yuen, it is clear that he is from one race and cannot fall into G.P. (this is different for someone born from a Hindu or Muslim family and who becomes atheist later on … this person then falls into G.P.). Anyway you can bet that there will be a lawsuit to test this clause wrt to Sik Yuen’s nomination.
Btw it does make a difference and does matter: if Sik Yuen enters as Sino-Mauritian, then the eight best loser can be allocated to the opposition (most propably MMM) because the complex ethnic/proportion calculation will allocate the 8th seat to a member of the opposition of a community other than Sino-Mauritian.
… eighth best loser, not eight …
@Bruno
The problem is “way of life.” Someone born a Sino-Mauritian (or Hindu or Muslin) might lead a life which is different from what is the “normal” way of life of those in that community.
For instance, most Sino-Mauritians are Catholics and not Buddhist. Doesn’t this make them members of the General Population automatically? Personally, I’m at a loss.
@Avinash
I was perfectly clear on that. Sino-Mauritian is not a religion. It’s not written Buddhist, a RELIGION, in the Constitution, it’s written sino-mauritian: a RACE. C’est so race ki categorize li: so couleur lapo, pas so pratik religieux. This is another inconsistency and aberration of the best loser system, dividing the population into 2 religions, and one race … and the rest.
Aster la, imagine that a Sino-Mauritian converts to Islam. He will be both Muslim (religion) and Sino-mauritian (race). Ki manier categorize li lerla?
I feel ill at ease with those who want to contest the fact that Mr. Sik Yuen registered himself as Population Generale.The Chinese people attend the sunday mass as catholics.Most of them have embraced the christian faith and are considered as catholics.Furthermore, it should be recalled that the Lalit candidates followed the same principle some years back by using a toss of the coin to declare to which ethnic group they belonged. So why this uproar to-day about Mr. Sik Yuen?
Do you fast like Hindus? Do you fast like Muslims? How often do you go to the Mosque? Do you light up incense at the Pagoda every morning? Do you pray to dolls/statues?
That is how the way of life is defined. And if you don’t do what certain communities do, you belong to the General Population. And this suits Resistans ek Alternativs.
E.g. If you’re a liberal who happens to be an atheist and who engage into fornication and take a piss at traditional values, you belong to the General Population.
As far as Micheal Sik Yuen goes, he is the ONLY one who can truly choose “his way of life.”
If some religious priest/kreol dude/journalist thinks that the electoral commission has wrongly picked Micheal Sik Yuen based on his looks (he does look like a chinaman (to put it bluntly), then this is a case of lookism and the former is a racist!
Leave Micheal Sik Yuen alone! He is now a member of parliament. People should focus on helping out the Government on new constitutional reforms instead of bitching!
Hey…it’s too late now to contest whether he is sino mauritian or pop.generale…any complaint regarding this should have been done in the space of 7 days after the Nomination Day… Now, nothing can be done because the court will rule according to the law…
En kreol cet fois ci – ki fer ena polemik la? Acoz ene certain parti politik perdant so leader p bitch et moan ki li pas gagne assez best losers au lieu soutenir le gov. present a faire la reforme. Et sa banne dimounes ki p critik michael c banne racists! Aret base zote lor so lapparence!
aret fer polemik a la con! pena preuve (zote vive ar michael? zote conne so la vie private?) conte sa ki zote p bitch about! leave michael alone!
Oops, I blogged on something similar me too.
As I said, I think that things need to change in Mauritius, especially the best loser system needs a review.
We are in 2010, everybody is talking about equal opportunities while our law still separates people according to their community?
There is no way that someone can judge someone’s community by looking at him/her and this information is written nowhere in a person’s records if am not mistaken.
Let’s hope this will prompt existing political parties to reconsider the bizarre criteria used for determining the best losers.
It’s true that comparing two religions (Hindu & Muslim) to a geographical provenance (Sino-Mauritian) is stupid. In fact, and I think a lot of Mauritians miss that, Hindus and Muslims in Mauritius come from India (so, strictly speaking, Hindus and Muslims should have been categorised as Indo-Mauritian.)
Those “rules” were introduced in 1967 at a time where people still thought in terms of race. And, since then, scientists, using DNA analysis, have found out that all humans belong to the same race: the Homo Sapiens.
As BBR has clearly says, it’s too late now to discuss this matter. What can that change? Apart from paying one more person the salary of deputy.
On the matter of the best loser system and the system itself, I believe that this system create stability among the different component of our society. Trying to change it would imply that we would create instability among the population of Mauritius. I would base my opinion on all previous elections that took place in Mauritius. If I’m not mistaken, communalism is predominant on the Island and thus once this can be removed, then we can change the current system. Concerning meritocracy, those who believe that it is alive on our island, I think they are not living here. Do you think that our people are ready to vote someone else than a hindu as prime minister? It was clear during the previous campaign that every social hindu groups sided with Navin Ramgoolam and even the VOH press release pointed that Navin should be re-elected as Prime Minister. Everyone knows that Navin worked very hard during this election and he asked the hindus clearly to choose between him and Berenger. So, this election proved that the communalism devil was active.
Correct me if I’m wrong.
@avinash
Not only Homo Sapiens, there is a trace of Neanderthal genome in some! So they are genetically different 
#sarcasm
Too late for protest…
Michael was not wrong to declare himself as someone of “population générale”.
He is not a Chinese though of Chinese origin.
He is not a foreigner residing in Mauritius but a Mauritian.
He may pray in pagodas and in churches while being a Christian.
He is free to take up the way of life he wishes.
So let’s all congratulate him for his present nomination.
Yes let’s hope they really review the system as the classification does not follow a single logical reasoning. It mixes up ethnicity with religion. And, fact is that the 1972 census is used as reference so the demographic stats used are inherently flawed as there must have been changes in the composition of the population w.r.t to the odd classification.
Donc, en résumé,
(1) Michael Sik Yuen ena droit considère li couma Population Général
(2) Critières “communal” pou système best loser bizin revoir.
Couma zot penser (2) bizin été?
@Avinash http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/downloads/PRMyths.pdf
I have read all the comments and wish to make the following observations:
1) The democratic system enables the party who has the most elected candidates govern. It also has its flaws (Gore was defeated against Bush, despite the fact that his party had more percentage votes than Bush). In the UK, labour has 258 seats with 29% of votes whereas the liberal democrats has only 57 seats with 23% of votes. Is this fair?
2) In our companies, it is the majority shareholder that decides everything (the shareholder who has 51%). The shareholder holding 49% has basically no say. This system is not fair but it works. Can you imagine a company where no decision can be taken?
3)The best loser system, despite all its flaws may have helped in keeping a stable Mauritius
4) Categorisation of populations in itself is the single worst evil. So proposing to group people based on religion, ethnic origins or way of life is completely stupid and cannot be done. Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, is what people have fought for during decades. Categorisation cannnot be imposed. It should be of your freewill. And if you refuse to be categorised, this is also your right.
Sik Yuen has chosen to declare himself as Generation Population. It is his absolute right. Just like the people who chose not to declare theirs.
@parvez
Let me ask you the following questions:
Chelsea is champion because of its merit and not because of Liverpool.
If hindus will have to chose a prime minister between Ramjuttun and Berenger, will they choose Ramjuttun?
So please give Ramgoolam his merit and do not insult’s people intelligence.
@Fadil
Thanks a lot for the link. It’s an excellent read.
@veeren: sure chelsea won on merit and you can’t compare chelsea with our political system. Like it or not but this choice worked for Ramgoolam. If it was on merits then our prime minister should have said to vote for the best candidates in the constituency and not perform regional campaign with this as slogan. it’s the truth and no one should deny that he perform this type of campaign in the rural areas.
thanks for commenting veeren.
As you mentioned Avinash, casting the moral/immoral aspect of the system aside, it is illogical. How can you compare way of life against ethnicity? A sino-mauritian can be a hindu or muslim if he wants to. The other thing is how would you prove someone’s way of life? I understand that the original idea was to make sure that all communities have a say in the election in order to keep Mauritius stable.
At the time, it was pretty much easy to classify and it worked somehow. It is an outdated system because people think differently. If it is to stay, it is up to the candidate to decide. After-all, it is about to which community he associates himself, for which community he is willing to fight if threatened in some ways.
The other thing is that most communities are already being presented within all the major parties – on the outside. Are the MPs, including the best losers, really representing their communities, their parties, or personal gains?
These 8 extra seats could be used in a corrective way to represent the number of votes as per the top coalitions/parties. This way the representation will be better and the people will really see that their votes count. One thing that we should be proud is that counting is not rigged in Mauritius.
who allowed this flaw to exist? the people walong with the government, the later just exploited a flaw that you have accepted to exist till now, people don’t have the right to throw stones at him now.
@Parvez, I have to admit that you are right and that most Mauritians choose to elect persons based on their “community”. It might seems silly and difficult to say, but it is true. I think our education system does not allow us (myself in it) to think impartially of what is best for the country. Politicians, make use and abuse of this, in their “strategic calculations” to win elections.
In contrast to you, however I personally think that although, the best loser system has helped Mauritius during the years, it is now time for change. We need to remove the importance of communities in the election and day to day running of the country. In so doing, we must not make the mistake of having the ruling of the majority become tyranny of the majority.
We must also have additional plans to get everyone satisfied, I think we also need to have more democratic parties that would allow anyone from any community to become elected (not father son dictatorship).
@veeren, please leave chelsea out of this.
Well if am not mistaken, he did have special meetings with Sino Mauritian in his constituency during the campaign, so how did he not see himself as general population back then. But the whole thing of declaring one`s community is kinda backwards in itself.
He might or might not have done that to trick the system, I think it is a great opportunity to review the system and prevent such polemics in the future. I head on the radio this morning that if the FSM had a Sino Mauritian candidate, he/she would have been the 8th best loser, “irrespective of his score”…clearly the thing is flawed.
Just a thought:
“The absolutely pathetic thing would be that he becomes a Minister because the Government needs to have one Sino-Mauritian in office…”
@parvez,
It is a fact that People prefer Ramgoolam to Berenger as prime minister. All preelection polls showed that. When we are electing a deputy, we are also voting for the prime minister. And this is the strategy of every leader to win (Barack Obama,Cameron, etc…)
However we cannot reduce everything to Ramgoolam was elected because of him being a hindu (and Paul berenger not) and forget the rest (rassembleur vs diviseur, positive language vs negative language, stability vs instability, etc…).
There are other reasons and we are evolving in the right directions. There are several factors that made Kavi Ramano elected and not Kadress Pillay (young vs old, new ideas vs old, local presence…).
Incidentally, PTR with Navin at its head lost in 2000 and MSM/MMM won with Berenger as prime minister for 2 years. During this time, I remember Berenger as a very good worker (maitrisant ses dossier comme il aime dire), doing most of the work and treating his ministers as incompetent and intellectually limited. Ramgoolam on the other end, put the onus on his ministers to deliver (some were excellent, some good and some bad). This is howw a good CEO should work, employ the right people and not try to do everything himself.
TEAMWORK, POSITIVE ATTITUDE WORKS
@Kervin: You are absolutely right. This demon should be wipe out from our political system and I don’t think education is enough for this.
@Parvez: education (of the system and our rights) may not be enough but it is a good start.
Michael Sik Yuen is now a Minister.
So, was he chosen because (i) he “looks” (even if he said he “is” not) a Sino-Mauritian or (ii) of his competency?
Does it matter?
It doesn’t matter! We need to hear more from the JEC now. What do these guys think of the new ministers? How are things about to change?
@Fadil,
Private sector will come up with same arguments: devaluate the rupee, the euro is depreciating, the dollar is appreciating. I wonder what they are waiting to buy in euros and sell in dollar markets or kind of get a balancinng act between their purchase and sale currencies.
I will give the ministers one year and not preempt on their decisions. For the last governement, some ministers were invisible for 5 years!
I wonder how we can contribute to really make a visible change..(kind of positive criticism) through the internet.
The point is that MSK DECLARED hinmself as being from the GP then re-categorised himself as Sino-Mauritian. The electoral committee refused the candidature of 104 people because they refused to abide by the (albeit archaic!) electorial rules, where one has to declare ones self as belonging to one of the 4 racial and religious categories. To make matters worse MSK not only ‘won’ one of the BLS seats but is now a government minister! We maybe laughing now at this farce, but in the event of this happening during a closely fought election things may/could turn ugly. I wonder what ‘daddy’ (Bernard) makes of all this?
……just a thought; how can people cry ‘communalist’ during election time, when the whole system is based and depends on a bloody communal basis (BLS) in order to be complete!
……just a thought; part 2! How would Christina (should she ever stand for elections) categorise herself given her mixed background?
@Melt We don’t know. As GP maybe…
The selection of the ‘best loser’ seems to depend on a decision, an appreciation (“so far as is possible”) and does not flow automatically from the electoral rules.
Does the Electoral Supervisory Commission (if I’ve read the constitution correctly, they appoint the ‘best losers’) have to state its reasons for selecting these ‘best losers’ and leaving unelected other candidates? (and for leaving the 8th seat vacant)
What proportion between the communities should be reached? (I read something about the 1972 census in the constitution)
@Bancki
The “rules” are somewhat complex. But they are mathematically valid as far as I can see… except that they are based on two ridiculous assumptions:
(1) We, Mauritians, need to be classified into four classes (and the fourth one contains all members who do not belong to any of the first three)
(2) An obscure census done in 1972 is still relevant as far as the composition of the population is concerned.
Interestingly, the Sik Yuen case has shown that the system is far from being good…
OK, the rules are mathematically sound and give no room for choice to the authority appointing the ‘best losers’.
What were the numbers of the four communities in the 1972 census?
@Bancki
I don’t know. The numbers were published in a newspaper a few weeks ago. I’ll try to find it. But, as far as I know, a lot of things have happened in 40 years (en particulier, lots of children with parents of different communities were born, became adults and do not really know how to classify themselves today…)
@melt Sorry. I had to delete your comment. I thought about approving it but, in the end, I didn’t do it because it would have provoked too much (for lack of a better word) palabres…
Evidemment, the census of 1972 is outdated, but it is still legally relevant for the ‘best losers’.
@Bancki
Legally and mathematically speaking, yes. But the numbers themselves do not reflect the social reality of Mauritius anymore…
A very interesting read….
Originally, a criollo meant a European (normally a Spaniard) born in the New World (as opposed to
peninsulares); today, a similar usage is current in La Réunion, where everybody born in the island, regardless of skin colour, is seen as créole, as opposed to the zoreils who were born in metropolitan France. born in metropolitan France. In Trinidad, the term creole is sometimes used to
designate all Trinidadians except those of Asian origin. In Suriname, a creole is a person of African origin, while in neighbouring French Guyana a creole is a person who has
adopted a European way of life.
Complete text at this link:
http://www.transcomm.ox.ac.uk/working%20papers/eriksen.pdf
@Veeren
Thanks for this insightful comment. It would be great if we all call ourselves Créoles like our friends from Réunion
I prefer Morysiens….
Does it matter?
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