The poll to renew the Rodrigues Regional Assembly has unseated the ruling OPR and put in place a new ruling “Alliance of alliances”, which will share power in Port-Mathurin. But who are the real winners of this election? And what do the results tell us about the direction where Rodriguan politics are headed?

The results

The latest elections to the Rodrigues Regional Assembly (RRA) have thrown up a number of firsts in the island’s political history. Not least is the fact that the OPR – the traditional grand old party of the island – has been dislodged by a broad opposition coalition. Out of the 17 seats up for grabs at the RRA, the OPR has eight seats with the remaining nine seats divided amongst the opposition coalition.

This result was only possible thanks to some deft last-minute political manoeuvring within the opposition parties. “The idea was an alliance of all against the ruling OPR to get the OPR out of power,” says Jocelyn Chan Low, historian and former academic at the University of Mauritius. The fear was that a divided opposition would have played into the hands of the OPR or, at worst, would have ended up in a three-cornered fight raising the possibility of ending up in the same crisis that Rodriguan politics had found itself following the 2012 RRA elections.

Back then, with the emergence of Johnson Roussety’s FPR, the elections threatened to deliver a ‘hung parliament’ with the OPR and the MR having eight seats each and the FPR with two. Until, that is, the deadlock was broken after the OPR was handed three extra seats to form a workable majority. To prevent either of these two eventualities at the eleventh hour before the RRA polls opened, an ‘alliance of alliances’ was hurriedly stitched up between the UPR-MMR-MIR and the PMSD-FPR alliances. “If the opposition was divided, then the OPR would have won. But with the opposition united, it became possible for them to win,” says José Arunasalom, former tourism minister and observer of Rodrigues.

A slim majority: the system or a Rodriguan specificity?

The result has delivered a slim majority of just one seat to the opposition alliance after the two-stage process of the allocation of 12 local region seats according to the first-past- the-post system and five island region seats under a propor- tional representation system. This is the first time that Rodriguan elections have delivered such a slim majority: in 2002 and 2006, it was 10-8; in 2012, it was 11-8-2 and in 2017, it was 10-7. This is the first time that a 9-8 result has been thrown up. This result could reignite the old debate about whether it is the electoral system in Rodrigues that throws up such a slim majority – as the Mauritius-based MSM and OPR have long complained – or a specificity of the Rodriguan political scene itself?

“This is a false debate which is conducted keeping the ethnic components of the electorate in Mauritius in mind, which is less the case in Rodrigues,” explains Jean Marie Richard, Media Relations Specialist at Imagine Communications, who has been a commentator on Rodriguan politics since 1982, and is himself a voter there. “The mix of first-past-the-post and proportio- nal representation that they have there has demonstrated its fairness in that there is little discrepancy between the percentage of votes parties get and the seats they get in the regional assembly.” Whatever instability there is, he adds, “is because of the small size of the electorate, the narrow difference in votes between the parties there, and a history of infighting and floor-crossing within politics in Rodrigues, it is not the system that should be blamed for this”. The result, slim majorities in each RRA election, Arunasalom adds, “simply reflects this division. Rodriguan voters have always been nearly equally divided into two camps. The electoral system in Rodrigues, while it can narrow the difference between a winning and losing side to more” accurately reflect actual votes cast for parties, it cannot manufacture a winner or turn a result upside down. What this means is that in a small, closely-contested constituency like Rodrigues, even a small shift in the electorate is enough to tip a result either way.

What has shifted then?

So, what shifts have taken place within the Rodriguan electorate to deliver a narrow victory to the grand opposition alliance and defeat to the OPR? The first thing to keep in mind was the retirement of Serge Clair as the OPR’s candidate for another run as Chief Commissioner. This robbed the OPR of its towering figure. And the second is the shift amongst younger Rodriguan voters. Compared to Mauritius where the average citizen is 37 years old, Rodrigues has a relatively younger population with the average Rodriguan being 31 years old. “Many of these younger voters, and first-time voters, were born after Rodrigues won its autonomy in 2002,” says Jean Marie Richard, “so they are not as sensitive to the OPR’s legacy of winning autonomy for Rodrigues; that’s because it is the only dispensation they have ever known. So, while the OPR has a sentimental place amongst older voters, younger votes don’t relate as much to its narrative, they want solutions to problems like lack of water, lack of jobs and opportunities for growth within Rodrigues. There was a feeling amongst younger voters that a change was needed and the OPR not taking into account these aspirations fed a wave of discontent that was represented by the opposition in all its components.”

The other side of the coin is explained by Arunasalom: “Older voters in Rodrigues tend to be loyal to parties, while younger voters there don’t vote like that. So, while younger voters were voting for the opposition, older voters who were disappointed with the OPR simply stayed away from the polls. This helped hand the opposition their victory.”

The rise of coalitions?

What is remarkable about this election is that it marks the first time that elections to the RRA were contested, and won, by a grand coalition of parties. Traditionally, elections to the RRA since 2002 have been mainly two-horse contests between the OPR and the MR. This was the case in 2002, 2006 and 2017. The 2012 RRA election was the only example of a three-cornered fight. But none of these RRA elections figured coalitions and alliances, let alone an ‘alliance of alliances’ as these elections have. So, are we witnessing the transplantation of the Mauritian pattern of coalition politics to Rodrigues? “This is an interesting question. There were a lot of people that wanted the OPR out for different reasons and a lot of sensitivities that were mushrooming there and the alliances within the opposition alliance reflects that.” While it is true, argues Arunasalom, “that this is the first coalition we have seen since 2002, it’s still a bit early to say whether this will become a new model for politics there, we just don’t know what will happen”. Rodrigues is not riven by the ethnic divisions that preserve coalition politics on mainland Mauritius. But one thing that has been imported from Mauritius is the power-sharing arrangement between the FPR’s Roussetty occupying the Chief Commissioner’s chair for two years and the UPR’s Franceau Grandcourt for the remaining three years, replicating the power-sharing arrangement between the MMM and the MSM in Mauritius between 2000 and 2005 when the two parties shared the prime ministership by turns throughout the mandate.

Big winners and one big loser

 While the grand alliance between the UPR-MMR-MIR and PMSD-FPR blocs has returned a lot of parties to power, within this broad tent, this election has been a significant win for two of them. The first big winner is the UPR of Franceau Grandcourt which only recently broke from the MR of Nicolas Von Mally and was the first time it contested an election as a separate party. “Grandcourt’s gamble has worked since quitting the MR… this is definitely the UPR’s show,” argues Jean Marie Richard.

But the other big winner is undoubtedly the PMSD. Since at least 2000, the PMSD – or at least the PMXD – has looked wistfully at Rodrigues, which it had dominated politically until Serge Clair’s OPR defeated it at the 1982 general elections, wiping the PMSD off as a significant political force in Rodrigues for more than three decades. The results of the RRA also come as a vindication of the PMSD’s strategy of expanding into Rodrigues. Although the OPR tried to paint the PMSD as a Mauritian party intruding into Rodrigues, the fact that the PMSD has won two seats at the RRA and that too as a member of a winning alliance with other Rodriguan parties indicates that the OPR’s attempt to write the PMSD off has failed and indicates that the PMSD is increasingly coming to be accepted within the Rodriguan political landscape, not just in general elections, but also in local regional elections. “The PMSD has got two seats in the RRA, one through the local region and another through the island list; this shows that even though the PMSD has been absent from Rodrigues for more than 35 years, it still has the ear of at least some in Rodrigues,” insists Jean Marie Richard.

Given the result of the poll, one can be forgiven for thinking that this was an election between the OPR and the ‘alliance of alliances’ and forgetting that it was actually supposed to be a three-cornered contest with the MR of Nicolas Von Mally also contesting the election on its own.

The biggest loser in this election is not the OPR, which though removed from power, is still the largest single party in the RRA and in terms of vote share, has been kept out of power only by a narrow margin held by a coalition on the other side (much as the MMM suffered after the 1976 election). The biggest loser in this election is actually Von Mally’s MR, which emerged as an offshoot of the OPR in 1995. “The MR has been in power itself, and Von Mally’s party was always the main challenger of the OPR in previous elections to the RRA, but it has been riven by factionalism over the years,” says Chan Low. The most recent example being the emergence of Grand- court’s UPR, which split off from the MR in February 2020 and dethroned Von Mally as minority leader within the RRA. “It has remained immobile in a dynamic environment,” Jean Marie Richard says, “there was a time when it won regional elections, but now it has been sanctioned for its immobility. It has been bluntly beaten with two of its own offshoots (the FPR and the UPR -ed.) proving to be more popular. It’s going to be tough for them and whatever vacuum was there in Rodriguan politics has been filled by other parties now”. The threat, warns Arunasalom, “is that it looks like the MR itself will disappear, it has fragmented into the FPR and the UPR and now it looks like its voters have shifted to the UPR and FPR”. Far from the electoral juggernaut it was in past elections in Rodrigues, in this election, the MR did not even break the 10 percent vote share threshold that would have enabled it to win a proportional representation seat on the island list.

The ‘Alliance of alliances’

 Now that the UPR-MMR-MIR and the PMSD-FPR blocs have succeeded in cobbling together an alliance at the 11th hour before the polls to slay the OPR dragon, now that it is done, the question is: how to keep such an eclectic grouping together for the serious business of governance? “The alliance itself is an incongruous one that contains within it both the MIR, which calls for the independence of Rodrigues from Mauritius, alongside the PMSD, which is a traditional Mauritian party,” argues Jean Marie Richard. The problem is that with a majority of just one seat on the RRA, keeping an alliance of five parties together is a tall order in a political environment rife with party infighting and crossing the floor. And that too, in the first coalition arrangement to govern the island in its history. “The majority of just one seat is a huge problem, fragmentation is a big danger,” cautions Chan Low.

The UPR-MMR-MIR has five seats and the PMSD-FPR has four seats; between these two alliances, they will have seven posts within the island’s executive to fill. Notwithstanding the possibility of the OPR challenging Roussety’s eligibility for an RRA seat. “This election has been marked by inherent uncertainty throughout,” Jean Marie Richard points out, “within this arrangement there will have to be constant dialogue and sensitivity in their actions to avoid friction, they will need to do that since it’s just a slim majority of one and the fact that even homogenous majorities at the RRA have broken down in the past”. But it’s that small margin of just one seat that’s keeping the OPR out of power that would be the greatest argument for sticking together, “if this arrangement breaks apart, then the OPR will return to power; so that will be the main argument for everybody to stick together, it will be a simple proposition that the OPR is still strong and the coalition will need to last to prevent it from coming back,” says Chan Low.

To help ensure this, it seems, Rodrigues is taking a leaf out of the Mauritian playbook. Although nearly every coalition within mainland Mauritius has fallen apart before the end of its mandate, only one government – the MMM-MSM one between 2000 and 2005 – survived till the end of its mandate thanks to a power-sharing arrangement and splitting the prime ministership between the two parties. The first coalition administration in Rodrigues, by splitting the Chief Commissioner’s seat between FPR’s Roussety and UPR’s Grandcourt for two and three years respectively, seems to recreate that arrangement to disincentivize any of the big parties within the coalition from rocking the boat too much.

Now the challenge, Jean Marie Richard insists, “is to avoid a partisan approach to development, and bring in continuity to end the practice over 20 years of each new administration stopping and undoing what its predecessor has done. Now it’s about looking to increase the powers of the RRA, allowing it to finance its own development through directly approaching international bodies, review the civil service in Rodrigues that still operates with a neo-colonial mindset, and give the necessary flexibility in decision-making to resolve problems”.