On 10 November 2024, Mauritius went to the polls in one of the most worrisome elections since the country’s independence. Amid concerns about growing surveillance, censorship and democratic backsliding, many citizens worried that the regime that came to power in 2019 would hand on to power by manipulating the process. Instead, the Alliance for Change won a remarkable landslide victory, taking all 60 seats in the legislature to completely wipe out the ruling party.
There were three main reasons for this. The main opposition alliance, the Alliance for Change, took appropriate measures to checkmate the incumbent, keeping a careful eye on the Electoral Commission and limiting the potential for manipulation. For their part, the election officers did an excellent job on polling day of acting transparency. They were encouraged to do this by a plethora of foreign observers from the African Union (AU), Southern African Development Community (SADC), the European Union, the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the Francophonie. The Electoral Commission also did a good job of dissipating unfounded news and creating an atmosphere of calm, cutting through the paranoia which encouraged many citizens to interpret any kind of development as an indication of an attempt to rig the polls.
Finally, citizens turned out in large numbers to cast their ballots for change. You can manipulate and overturn small election victories, but when the opposition wins by big margins all over the country there is no way to credibly stay in power through ballot box stuffing.
Polling day went on smoothly, starting from 07.00 till 18.00 hrs. However, in a quirk of the system, counting in Mauritius doesn’t start immediately at the same polling stations after the polls. Instead, the sealed ballot boxes are transported to the constituency counting station for next day counting. Party agents (representatives) follow the vehicles to prevent any ballot box swapping or the introduction of stuffed ballot boxes en route.
At the counting center, observers were placed not just inside the polling center but also outside for security reasons. Both AU and SADC find this archaic procedure to be a bizarre colonial era vestige, an ‘anachronism’ that has no ‘raison d’etre’ in the age of technology, as Mauritius is the only member of AU and SADC that still conducts a two-phase election process in which counting and voting are separated in this way.
As the votes started to be counted, it immediately became clear that the People’s Alliance government was going to struggle. Despite all of the concerns about democratic backsliding – or perhaps because of them – the turn out was abnormally high and the vast majority of voters rejected the government, as Afrobarometer survey data has suggested they would. In addition to creeping authoritarianism, voters were motivated about poor economic management, limited job creation, and rising corruption.
As counting progressed, the gulf between the Alliance for Change and the People’s Alliance kept widening in all the 20 constituencies (each returning the members to parliament) until eventually the score was an unexpected 60-0 for the opposition. For only the third time in the country’s history, the ruling party was wiped out. It will now be up to civil society groups, citizens, and the media to hold the new government to account in the absence of a legislative opposition.
The lesson that Africa and other regions struggling to defend democracy can draw from the Mauritian experience is that if there is a determined will among the public, there will be a way. When the people decide to take the destiny of the country in their own hands, they will eventually decide who will rule them.
Harry Booluck, former Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Mauritius.
