The government has vehemently denied the opposition’s speculation that we will see early general elections in the country. With municipal elections – already delayed multiple times – due to be held in June this year, here is why holding them is a risky move for the government.

1.The golden age

Municipal elections are due to be held in June this year, after multiple extensions of mayors’ and councillors’ terms, attributed to the health risks posed by Covid-19. The last time such polls were held was way back in 2015. “In theory they should be held this year,” says Jocelyn Chan Low, historian and former academic at the University of Mauritius, “but it all depends on how the government assesses the situation. It all depends on what happens until June.”

This discretion handed to the government on when to hold a municipal election is the result of a curious quirk of our constitution; while it mandates parliament to be automatically dissolved every five years necessitating national elections, it is silent about municipal elections. These are determined solely by the 2011 Local Government Act and a government wanting to postpone such elections merely needs a simple majority – which any government has in parliament – to introduce a new amendment pushing back municipal elections still further.

This cavalier handling of municipal elections was not always so. The 1970s and early 1980s were in many ways a golden era for local elections. And it came about as a reaction to heavy-handedness in handling such polls. Back in December 1971 a LabourPMSD government led by Prime Minister Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam passed a state of emergency in a 48-10 vote in parliament, with five abstentions. The following year, this was used to postpone municipal elections across the five towns in Mauritius; and in 1973, when the Labour-PMSD block fell apart.

In 1974, the then-government suspended four elected municipal councils replacing them with government-appointed commissions. Hamid Moollan took over the municipality in Port-Louis, Roland Armand in Beau-Bassin/ Rose-Hill, Harry Tirvengadum in QuatreBornes and Gaëtan de Chazal in Curepipe. The government justified the move by citing financial mismanagement by PMSD-dominated municipal councils, whereas Gaëtan Duval of the PMSD argued that the move was designed to punish his party for breaking with the Labour Party. However, Duval’s case was weakened somewhat by the PMSD, while it was in government, having agreed with the replacing of an elected municipality in Vacoas-Phoenix with a similarly appointed commission back in 1969.

After the three-cornered fight in the 1976 national elections, Labour and the PMSD came together in a new coalition again to keep the MMM out of power. As part of the agreement, initially the new government toyed with the idea of handing over the municipal administrations of Port-Louis, Rose-Hill and Curepipe back to nominated PMSD members. Duval saw that a fair recompense since its people had been kicked out of municipal administrations when the coalition broke up in 1973. However, by January 1977 the PMSD went back on the idea and agreed with holding municipal elections that same year instead. The first such polls to be held since 1969. This would also be the first time that an opposition would contest in municipal elections as well.

What resulted from the 1977 municipal election was the MMM getting control of three municipal councils – Port-Louis, VacoasPhoneix and Beau-Bassin/Rose-Hill – while the Labour-PMSD tandem retained control of Curepipe and Quatre-Bornes, despite the fact that both sides had won exactly 63 councillor seats each. “This began the heyday of municipal councils and their significance that lasted until the early 1980s,” recalls Ram Seegobin of Lalit, “it was under MSM-dominated governments that a tendency towards centralization with the central government took off.”

2 The fall

In 1982, following its 60-0 victory in national elections, the MMM swept all five towns, bagging 116 out of 126 councillor seats. But after the MMM split in 1983, the newly founded MSM led by Sir Anerood Jugnauth sought to cut the MMM down to size within urban areas and followed this up by progressively stripping municipal councils of power. In 1984, after expelling the Libyan ambassador (Libya was financing municipal projects in Port-Louis) the MSM-led government barred municipalities from raising money from foreign states and institutions to finance their projects.

When the MMM ended up winning handsomely in the 1985 municipal elections – winning 118 councillor seats leaving the MSM-led coalition with only eight seats in Vacoas – the government responded by founding the Local Government Service Commission in 1988 to take the power to hire and promote people away from oppositiondominated municipal councils and hand it back to the central government. Local infrastructure would also be built by a newly founded National Development Unit rather than municipalities.

Since then, successive governments have only deepened this centralizing tendency – the latest move being announcing the abolishing of municipal taxes, one of the few remaining independent sources of revenue of municipalities – leaving the latter with everfewer powers and ever-more dependence on the government of the day for money and handing out jobs. This has smashed public confidence in municipal administration in recent decades. A 2022 poll by Afro Barometer found that only 50 per cent of Mauritians approved of the job municipal councils were doing, and only 40 per cent trusted them.

This has translated into falling participation rates in municipal elections. At the last poll in 2015, for instance, turnout was just a paltry 35.6 per cent. “Devolution of power to local bodies is gone now,” says Seegobin, “if you have local government without access to its own finances, they don’t have much of a role at all. What municipal elections are is more an urban opinion poll now. While there are arguments of whether municipal elections need to be included in the constitution, once the government has decided that municipal councils don’t do anything, these elections are not all that politically significant.

3 The political risk

While municipal councils in themselves may be becoming less important, what has happened in the last few decades is that they have become important in their timing. And this is where the current government’s conundrum lies. “They are just about building momentum towards a general election,” says Chan Low, “normally a government tries to avoid this by holding a municipal election just after a national election when opposition parties are weak and still digesting their defeat. It’s too risky to hold it just before a national election.”

The trend is clear: hold a municipal election just after a general election victory. Municipal elections were held in 1988 after the general elections in 1987. Although that fight was more between the MMM-MTD and the PMSD, after Gaëtan Duval had broken with the MSM over the Sinotex strike. Duval as acting Prime Minister urged the management of Sinotex to re-hire 3,000 workers fired for an illegal strike, and urged changes to the EPZ Act, which the MSM deemed to be a reversal of its policy. The result was the MSM leaving the 1988 municipal polls to those two parties with the MMM-MTD winning 67 per cent of the vote and the PMSD 27 per cent.

But following that episode, municipal elections were timed in a way to allow the government to sweep away a demoralized opposition: the 1991 national elections were swiftly followed by municipal polls; after a victory at the 2000 elections, in September that same year, the MMM-MSM bloc swept 90 per cent of council seats leaving the Labour-PMXDMR with just 8.6 per cent of seats. After the 2005 national elections, municipal elections were held in October that same year where the Labour Party-led Alliance Sociale bagged 96 per cent of municipal council seats leaving the MMM-MSMPMSD with just 3.1 per cent.

''The risks for the MSM-led ruling coalition today is much the same as that which faced the Labour-led alliance back in 2012.''

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	<figcaption>The exception that proves the rule: the 2012 municipal elections were the only recent poll that did not immediately follow a national election.&copy;&nbsp;OFFICE OF THE ELECTORAL COMMISSIONER</figcaption>
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The exception that proves the rule was the municipal election that took place after the 2010 national election. A Labour-MSM-PMSD government did not hold municipal elections just after the national elections, instead leaving it mid-way through their mandate in 2012. With the Labour-led alliance dominating all five municipalities since the 2005 polls, when the opposition MMM-MSM bloc snatched Port-Louis, Quatre-Bornes and Rose-Hill with the ruling Labour-PMSD retaining just Vacoas, while just keeping the opposition from dominating Curepipe through an arrangement with Eric Guimbeau’s MMSD, the result boosted the momentum of the opposition going into the 2014 election.

4 History repeats itself?

THE risks for the MSM-led ruling coalition today is much the same as that which faced the Labour-led alliance back in 2012. After it won the 2014 elections, the MSMPMSD-ML coalition was careful to follow the rule and quickly held municipal elections in 2015. Predictably, the MSM-led alliance swept the municipal elections against a demoralized Labour-MMM opposition. Given the distribution of municipal council tickets in the 2015 poll, the MSM-ML bloc – even without the PMSD that broke away in 2017 – has retained control of all five municipal councils since 2015. Much as the Labour-led alliance had controlled all five town administrations between 2005 and 2012.

After another MSM-led coalition returned to power in the 2019 national election, it could not simply repeat its holding of a municipal election just after it. That was due to the Covid-19 pandemic that hit the country in March 2020. What the MSM-led ruling alliance ended up doing was merely extending the mandate of municipal councils that it dominated since they were elected in 2015.

The risk today is that anything short of another sweep of all five towns by the ruling coalition would be spun as a defeat by the opposition parties and end up pumping them up, much as the 2012 municipal elections ended up emboldening the opposition parties. The key difference this time around is that this would be happening with just a year to go ahead of a national election. “It’s very risky to do this just a year before a general election. If it happens, it will only be following a major realignment of political parties,” says Chan Low, “until then it would be too much of a risk.”