C’est le procès à la une ces jours-ci: la pétition électorale de Suren Dayal, candidat battu du Parti Travailliste en 2019, pour invalider les élections de Pravind Jugnauth, Leela Devi Dookun-Luchoomun et Yogida Sawmynaden. L’express vous explique la position des différents témoins face aux arguments du pétitionnaire.

1. > The promise to hike old-age pension

One of the key points in Dayal’s petition is the promise of a hike in the basic retirement pension (BRP) to Rs 9,000 in January 2020, and a gradual climb to Rs 13,500 by the end of the MSM’s current mandate. In his earlier testimony in court last week, Labour Party (LP) candidate Suren Dayal stated: “They had passed the budget in June (2019-ed.) and said the BRP (ed.) would be Rs 6,500, but then the prime minister just before dissolving parliament comes to a targeted gathering and makes this promise.” He also told the court: “Alliance Morisien was trading; if you vote for me, you will get Rs13,500.”

In his own testimony in court this week, prime minister Pravind Jugnauth responded to this point in three ways: first, by referring to the LP-PMSD manifesto to show that they had made similar promises to hike the pension. “They were promising to raise the BRP to Rs 10,000. They had promised to raise it by more than we did initially; we proposed to increase it initially to Rs 9,000, but they were proposing that in December 2019 itself, it would become Rs 10,000.”

The second defence tactic: that it was normal for Jugnauth to announce the measure in his speech on October 1 at the SVICC: “It was known that 2019 was an election year. I heard the petitioner (Dayal-ed.) himself say that we were approaching general elections. In fact, the National Assembly would stand dissolved in December and therefore there was nothing abnormal for me to share the vision that we had and to make that statement.”

And the third argument: that promising to raise the pension was not such a departure from what the MSM had done in the past anyway: “In 2014, my party and the Muvman Liberater whose leader is Ivan Collendavelloo concluded an alliance together with the PMSD and at that time we already proposed to increase the BRP to Rs 5,000. So, at that time we already shared the same vision for our elders. It shows that we were already on the same wavelength in 2014 and we continued through our 5-year mandate. I find it absolutely normal that we proposed to raise it to Rs 9,000.”

Cross-examined by Dayal’s lawyer Robin Ramburn on Thursday, what Dayal’s side sought to show was that Jugnauth was well-aware of how the pension affects an election. Look at this exchange:

Robin Ramburn: “In 2004, there were two specific issues that led to your defeat, targeting of the pension and subsidies on rice, etc.”

 Pravind Jugnauth: “I don’t agree that these were the issues that led to that.”

Ramburn: “Targeting the pension was an issue not received well by the population.”

Jugnauth: “It was an issue, but I must say there were a lot of criticisms from the opposition.”

Ramburn: “People voted the opposition to power after that (in 2005 -ed.). So since then, you have been fully aware that the pension is a sensitive issue?”

Jugnauth: “Like any other measure that is important to the people.”

Ramburn: “Not just important but sensitive as well?”

Jugnauth: “It is for people to say.”

2. > The SVICC meeting

Dayal’s petition claims that the government deliberately timed the meeting at the SVICC on October 1, 2019, just before the dissolution of the National Assembly to announce their pension hike promise. In his testimony last week, Dayal was challenged by Jugnauth’s lawyer Ravind Chetty that LP had conducted a similar meeting in 2010. “That was after the election. This is the difference from what happened in 2019,” responded Dayal. In his testimony this week, Jugnauth told the court about Oct 1, 2019, “At that time the election date had not yet been decided.” That was a question of timing.

But Dayal’s argument is that the meeting itself was engineered by Jugnauth for him to make his promise of the pension hike. Jugnauth insisted that the event is organized by the social security ministry each year, ever since it became a national event in 2000 and that he addressed it as its chief guest, as has been the long-standing practice, pointing out that Navin Ramgoolam as former prime minister had addressed the event in 2005, 2008 and 2010. This was to counter Dayal’s point that the event was “organized by the social security ministry with a design, the promise of Rs 13,500 and trading for votes… they were fully involved in that, it was an act of bribery”.

What about the food and drink served to the 5,000 elders who attended that meeting? Dayal testified in court that “it’s not comparable with any year; we saw on video how they scrambled for the biryani”. This week, Jugnauth’s point was that “as usual it was the ministry of social security, not just for 2019 but for previous similar events,” pointing out that for the 2019 event, the contract to supply 5,000 boxes of biryani was given to Mytos Ltd for Rs 471,500.

3. > The backdated PRB report

One of the measures mentioned in Dayal’s petition is government’s promise that although the next Pay Research Bureau (PRB) report (that determines wages and working conditions across the public sector) was due in 2021, its recommendations would be backdated to 2020. Dayal told the court that “it was act of bribery” and added that according to him, “it is not logical for recommendations to take effect even before the report itself has come out”.

In response, Jugnauth testified that the 1987 PRB report was published in July, but its implementation backdated to January, while the 1998 PRB report was published in August, but implemented as from July. Hence, promising to backdate a PRB report was not something unheard of. But what has happened to the PRB report supposed to come out in 2021? “Because of Covid the PRB has been delayed, they have not been able to carry out meetings and consultations and therefore it has been delayed,” Jugnauth said in court on Wednesday.

4. > The bonus to public security officers

The one-off performance bonus paid to police officers, prison officers and firemen is another bone of contention in the petition. “This was not something innocent,” argued Dayal, “it was something that the PRB had recommended (in 2016 -ed.) but was not implemented.” It was, he said, like all the government’s promises, “all about paisa (money), paisa, paisa!”

Jugnauth’s reply was: “That measure was a proposal in our manifesto. When he formed the new government, we implemented that measure.” On Wednesday, he told the court that this bonus had been paid to 10,200 police officers, 39 rehabilitation youth centre officers, 751 prison officers and 633 firemen in December 2019, while 81 more prison officers were paid between January and June 2020.

5. > Jugnauth’s response to Salim Muthy

On Monday July 19, Salim Muthy told the court that he and Yousouf Sumodhee held meetings with the government on October 30 and 31, and November 1, 2019, to decide on reimbursements of Super Cash Back Gold (SCBG) and BAML investors who put money into the investment schemes of the now-defunct BAI. This, after Muthy declared in a meeting that people who had put money into SCBG had “75,000 votes in their hands”. Muthy said he had met with two of Jugnauth’s advisors, Ken Arian, and Raj Meetarbhan, on October 30, 2019, with financial secretary Dev Manraj and Arian at the prime minister’s office (PMO) on October 31, 2019, and finally with Rudy Veeramundar, PMO’s communications officer, and Sanjeev Issary, then CEO of the National Property Fund Ltd (NPFL).

Based on these meetings, Muthy said that on November 3, 2019, he held a meeting of SCBG and BAML ‘victims’ and told them that the government had agreed to reimburse 100 percent of the money to investors of up to Rs 7 million in these schemes; and 75 percent for investors of more than Rs 7 million. Muthy alleged in court that he had signed a document to that effect, but that Veeramundar did not give him a copy of the agreement, so Muthy testified, telling him, “This could play against us. If this gets out, it could be criticised as an electoral bribe.” The same day that Muthy was outlining the details of this ‘agreement’, Jugnauth told a campaign rally in Vacoas that, if elected, “we will continue to reimburse the victims of the BAI”. This is the basis for Dayal’s petition alleging that the government engaged in electoral bribery by promising to reimburse Rs 3 billion to people who had invested in SCBG and BAML.

So, what was Jugnauth’s response to that? First, he told the court that no member of his party responded to Muthy’s invitation to attend a meeting of SCBG and BAML ‘victims’ in October 2019, “because we had nothing new to communicate to that group. The NPFL had already dealt with their cases; there was a final agreement that had been reached in 2017 and there was nothing new to propose”. The original deal – approved by cabinet on June 30, 2017 – refunding 100 percent to those who had invested less than Rs 200,000; 70 percent for investments of Rs 200,000 to Rs 2 million; and 60 percent for investments above Rs 2 million in SCBG; 85 percent, 70 percent and 50 percent respectively for these investment categories in BAML.

What about Muthy’s meetings with PMO officials and the NPFL? “I am not aware of any meetings with Salim Muthy or Yousouf Sumodhee.” And why was it in his speech on November 3, 2019? “A number of them had been paid, but the money had run out, there was Rs 282.2 million that still had to be paid by 2 November 2, 2019,” said Jugnauth, “so my intervention in the public meeting was referring to those whom the NPFL had committed to pay, but who had not yet received their money… for us this was still unfinished business.” Manraj and Veeramundar are expected to testify today to give their versions of the events.