Mauritius: Electoral system

Updated 2000

Mauritius' electoral system is a Block Vote (BV) system which is the use of First-Past-The Past (FPTP) voting in multimember districts.

There are 62 elected representatives by party list from 20 three-seat constituencies (main island) and one two-seat constituency of Rodrigues, an island located some 500 Km east of the main island. In addition to this "block-voting", a maximum of eight additional seats may be allocated to the "best losers" on the basis of their communities and political parties in order to ensure a fair representation of the "best losers" from the under-represented communities and political parties.

According to the principal electoral officer in Mauritius:

The main advantage of this system of block voting is that it seems likely to reinforce the party allegiances of electors and to reduce the communal feelings of the electorate by making it less easy for the supporter of a particular party to give his support only to the candidate or candidates of his [her] party who happens to be drawn from his [her] own community (Dahoo 2000).

This observation is consistent with the block vote's ability to accommodate voter preference for individual candidates while stressing the role of parties. However, when voters cast all their votes for candidates from the same party in their constituency the BV system tends to exaggerate the disadvantages of other FPTP systems. In particular, block vote election results can produce highly disproportional results. In 1982 and in 1995 (as indicated in Mauritius: 1995 National Assembly election results) the winning party coalitions won every seat with approximately 65% of the vote in each election.

In response, there is a growing support among parties for the introduction of some proportionality in the electoral system. The MSM/MMM opposition alliance proposes that 2/3 of the representatives be elected on the basis of the FPTP system and 1/3 on the basis of proportional representation. Prior to the 2000 elections the opposition alliance blamed the ruling coalition of delaying the introduction of a new electoral system.

Reference

DAHOO, M 2000 "Mauritius Electoral Profile", EISA.