Mauritius Edging Dangerously Towards Plutocracy

Have you ever really asked yourself why taxes were flattened to 15% between 2005 and 2010? Probably not. That was done because it made the wealthiest segment of the population a lot richer. Not because of some bogus Triple External Shocks argument. And some politicians would want to do this because the opaque financial contributions they receive would get larger. A lot larger. Even if it meant killing savings in the economy or throwing a lot more people into poverty. This is called a plutocracy. Not a democracy.

Indeed Household Budget Survey (HBS) data tells us that there were an extra 500 or so poor people in Mauritius after the first term of Navin Ramgoolam. But that by 2012 there were a record 22,000 more people that were thrown into poverty – bringing the total of poor Mauritians to 126,200 – compared to the preceding five years. Which coincides pretty much with his second term and the start of the reforms. That's like increasing the speed at which pockets of poverty are created by 44 times.

Thoughts on Electoral Reform (I)

Not sure I understand the logic of giving us only 42 days to send our submissions on electoral reform after taking 389 days -- that's nine times more -- to get the white paper out. It gets funnier when you realise that our Government is proposing nothing new. Nope. The Government is instead and essentially recommending that we adopt the January 2012 Sithanen report: something that is deeply flawed and shrinks dangerously our democracy. And which got a University of Mauritius student an ovation when he rightly said -- after hearing it from the horse's mouth -- that it doesn't solve anything.

The six weeks we have to read and comment on the report is also and evidently way too short when you notice the number of interesting articles -- of the non-TINA variety -- that appeared almost immediately in the Forum and elsewhere. I take a quick look at a few at the end of this piece.