Mauritius: Candidate nomination

Extracted from: Rouikaya Kasenally 2009 "Chapter 8: Mauritius" IN Denis Kadima and Susan Booysen (eds) Compendium of Elections in Southern Africa 1989-2009: 20 Years of Multiparty Democracy, EISA, Johannesburg, 281-282.

Elections are competitive and potential candidates have first to be nominated by their respective parties (if they are part of a given party) before they can proceed with their official nomination. It is equally important to note that candidates can stand as independents and do not require any party affiliation or nomination. The National Assembly Elections Act, 1968 [actually the National Assembly Elections Regulations, 1968], in section 12 requires that the candidate fulfils a number of criteria, such as his/her nomination being supported by eight registered electors of the constituency for which the candidate is seeking to be elected (subsection 2), that s/he declares to be qualified to be elected a member of the Legislative Assembly (subsection 4 (a)), declares the party to which s/he belongs (subsection 4 (b)) and declares the community - Muslim, Hindu, Chinese or General Population - to which s/he belongs.

The criterion dealing with community is further reinforced in section 3 of the first schedule of the constitution, which deals with the official publication of the nominated candidate's community, and the subsequent bearing on the candidate if the validity of the claim is contested. In fact, the official requirement of nominated candidates having to disclose their community has been the subject of numerous contestations by smaller political parties, such as Lalit and Resistanz Ek Alternativ, as it is believed in certain quarters to reinforce the notion of ethnic politics bent on segregation. Two cases filed by the above-mentioned political parties in the Mauritian Court in 2000 and 2005 (prior to the general elections) produced the 'Seetulsing Judgement' (2000) and the 'Balancy Judgement' (2005), which acknowledged the narrowness of the ethnic classification of Mauritian society. In 2006, Resistanz Ek Alternativ wrote to the United Nations Human Rights Commission to demand that the latter pronounces itself on the unconstitutionality of the first schedule of the Mauritian constitution.

References

CONSTITUTION OF MAURITIUS 1968, [www] http://www.gov.mu/portal/site/AssemblySite/menuitem.ee3d58b2c32c60451251701065c521ca/ [opens new window] (accessed 22 Feb 2010).

NATIONAL ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS REGULATIONS, 1968.