Christina Meetoo

On Media, Society and Mauritius

elections

Debate idea for media houses for the by-elections of #18

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Today, I posted this on Facebook:

I offer this idea to all media houses: please organise a different type of debate with the candidates.

One where a voter of the constituency is randomly selected from the voter roll of each ward to ask questions to the candidates. If people decline, just keep on with the random selection until you find those who are willing to participate.

One where you collect questions from the voters of the constituency and select the ones which get more upvotes and those themes which are more relevant to the constituency.

One where candidates are NOT allowed to talk about their opponents at all and are only allowed to talk about what they intend to do as opposition MP for the constituency:

– how they plan to interact with all those they will represent once in parliament (including partisans and non-partisans – and this should not just be about the weekly meetings which will definitely attract mostly partisans, thus skewing the whole process)

– what type of questions they will raise about the constituency when in parliament (why not ask them what their 3 first PQs would be?)

– how they plan to report back to the inhabitants on the answers they have received and the follow-up they plan to do

Because, we’ve already heard it all about the reasons for their engagement with a particular party as opposed to another one, their current positioning wrt current national issues, their scathing criticism towards their opponents (also known as yesterday’s and tomorrow’s potential friends)…

Please feel free to use my ideas because I am a voter in Quatre-Bornes and I think this would allow me to make, not necessarily the better choice, but at least make up my mind about the one who has the highest probability of being a better MP for QB than the others.

In the comments, I also added:

Since there’s not much time left, why not organise a joint exercise in a neutral venue for once? Maybe at the Media Trust?

(…) the point is that any voice should have the same probability of being heard, not just ‘expert voices’, a category where people tend to think of people of our socioeconomic class only.

Pre-electoral communications: the kick-off

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Why was there such a shortage of April’s Fool Jokes this year in Mauritius? Who’s the culprit?

Answer: The Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam.
He chose to announce dissolution of the national assembly on 31st March so that all the media people (and everyone interested even remotely about local news) were intent on covering and discussing the upcoming general elections.

Surprise Number 1: Elections are scheduled for 5th May, i.e. one day before the UK elections. On 3rd March, the PM had stated that the elections would take place after the UK elections (see articles in L’express and in Le Défi Plus).

Surprise Number 2: The Labour Party is partnering with the ‘loyal’ opposition party MSM and keeping PMSD (already in its governing Social Alliance). Only a few weeks before, the possibility of an alliance of the Labour Party with the ‘momentarily loyal’ opposition party MMM, was still making the news (see L’express and Le Mauricien)

Spinning the communication
The first announcement was made around 7.30 p.m. by Ramgoolam at the Treasury Building. It was initially scheduled for 7 p.m. but started later, officially because the Camp Thorel inauguration was delayed (by the organisation of photo shoots with Pravind Jugnauth?). Admittedly, it looks like this was done deliberately to keep the journalists on their toes and especially to coincide with the peak news bulletin on the MBC TV. The TV station’s director, Dan Callikhan, is also the communication mastermind for the PM (he was formerly communication adviser at PMO).

I could personally sense that the speech had been written and formatted by a communication person. Although the PM delivered quite well, he did not re-appropriate the speech to make it his own as he repeatedly looked at his paper to deliver. The key words ‘Unité’, ‘Egalité’ and ‘Modernité’ are apparently taken from his previous campaign, yet their utterance did not quite sound convincing enough for me but I can imagine that people were impressed by the simplicity and strength of the concepts. To his credit, the PM appeared quiet, calm and serene during the address.

Obviously, one would have to adopt a comparative approach. If other contenders are similar or less good, Ramgoolam is likely to come through as a great communicator and leader. Staunch partisans will celebrate the wonderful communication skills of the PM whereas staunch opponents will have a completely opposite reading. As did the MMM leader Paul Bérenger who interpreted the PM’s body language as utter panic and used foul language to describe the situation.

Duval’s face reveals discontent
As for the second announcement, it was made at around 8.30 p.m. at the Labourdonnais Hotel. Navin Ramgoolam spoke first, followed by DPM Rashid Beebeejaun, VPM Xavier Luc Duval and finally MSM leader Pravind Jugnauth. Again, the PM kept reading from his prepared speech but did reasonably well. Beebeejaun was obviously happy and delivered naturally his speech but Duval pulled a long face during his speech. There was a shot during Jugnauth’s speech which was quite telling: Duval was looking very glum and seemed to force himself to nod at each emphatic declaration of Jugnauth. The ticket allocation did not seem to make him happy of course (8 for his party). Jugnauth, who had never struck me as a very charismatic speaker, was the most comfortable and natural of all in his speech delivery, presumably as he was feeling elated at having secured 18 tickets in the alliance.

Of course, none of them said anything significant beyond the to-be-expected simplistic rationales for the alliance. You wouldn’t expect that, would you?