Lev Pake Reste Turns 10

Yes. Already. A recap. So Ramgoolam nominates Bheenick as Governor -- one of his best decisions ever but that too after a year and a half of doing God knows what -- but Sithanen is unhappy so he threatens to resign or maybe he does. The PM is out of the country at the time but makes an appeal to the Minister on national tv. The latter eventually changes his mind -- after about a week -- when his pick as the BoM chief gets the SBM chairmanship. But not before swallowing something that's not exactly a grass snake and creating an urgent need to amend one famous Chevenement formula.

That was a really strange week. See if a Minister cannot be present at his office there has to be a colleague who steps in for him. We've seen this so many times: another member of Cabinet will answer parliamentary questions on behalf of the officeholder when the latter is out of the country. If a Minister resigns our excellent constitution takes care of that seamlessly. And that too without the PM having to be at his desk. The Ministry can also be reassigned to another colleague. For example SAJ held the Ministry of Finance for a few months last year. So did Ramgoolam in 2014. But none of those happened back in February 2007.

Besides there were radio reports that updated us on the absence of Sithanen at the Ministry of Finance -- on an almost hourly basis -- and which wondered if the Minister would be back in time for the important meetings scheduled for that week. It's not any different from a hospital receptionist nervously wondering if she would finally see the surgeon walking towards the operating theatre for some critical intervention. It would be interesting to know how the meetings went on if they went on. If there was a Minister present. If not what was the explanation provided to the people attending those meetings. And how many were cancelled.

Von-Mally's Choice Reveals Why Party Lists Shrink Democracies

Lists to Party

Check the party lists for the ongoing Rodrigues Regional Assembly (RRA) elections and you will find the Leader of the Mouvement Rodriguais (MR) sitting at the top of his. That could be a lot safer for him than contesting one of the 12 FPTP seats especially if the MR doesn't grab too many of them. Which makes it more difficult for voters to dump Mr. Von-Mally. See you needed at least 48.19% of the local region votes in the riding of Port-Mathurin to get into the Regional Assembly back in 2012. A tad more than in 2006. Whereas all you need to qualify for a PR seat is that your party gets at least 10% of the island region votes and it doesn't get enough FPTP candidates elected. There's also another way Von-Mally could get in: his party grabs a majority of the FPTP seats but that majority gets neutralised by the PR seats. He would then go in on the first of the 3 extra seats that guarantee that the winner of the FPTP competitions forms the regional government.

Dumping Made Harder

So how can voters dump Mr. Von-Mally? By casting less than 10% of the island region votes in favour of the MR -- so that party doesn't qualify for any PR seats -- and not granting them a majority of the FPTP seats -- so they can't benefit from any of those extra 3 seats. This would mean dumping all the candidates that are on the party list of the MR and not electing enough of their FPTP candidates. Which is kind of difficult for voters to do as these are events they don't directly control. Plus nobody is saying they actually want to wipe out a whole party. They might just want to get rid of its Leader. Maybe because he's been around for way too long. Mind you, I have nothing against Mr. Von-Mally and his party might well be the best option for our fellow countrypeople in Rodrigues. Just making a point here. But the way the electoral rules are currently set do not allow them to toss him out surgically. And that shrinks the regional democracy as they take an important and efficient electoral weapon away from voters. The Economist warned us about this kind of risk four years ago when it reported how party lists have undermined accountability in South Africa. That of course was before the appearance of one new species: the Minister-Slave.