The population’s unrequited distaste for the vulgar realities of politics has always been met with a shrug of the shoulders from our beloved prime minister. Selling himself as the champion of actions over words, Anerood Jugnauth is so abrasive that we have to wonder how he represents us on the international stage. However, his philosophy is simple. As long as the job gets done, should we really care about the details?

Of course we should care, not that the job is being done anyway. Anerood Jugnauth is not eternal and there will be a point in time when we will have to pay for the person that he is. Whether it is his antagonisation of the US by saying that they can “bathe in shit” or his routine outburst against the ungrateful nation that is Mauritius, we are bound to regret our laissez-faire attitude in the future.

In an emotional speech last Friday in his stronghold of Rivière du Rempart, he blamed Mauritians again for being too impatient and ungrateful. He also shed a few tears when he spoke of his youth. Tears that felt underwhelming when you take into consideration the youth of today, suffering at the hands of a failing education system and inefficient anti-drug policies. This is not all Jugnauth’s fault but a lot of it is, including having Anil Gayan as minister of health. To be fair, that’s another debate.

Jugnauth also reminded the audience of how he took Mauritius from the brink when he replaced Seewoosagur Ramgoolam at the head of the country. The inexorable economic miracle. Godwin’s law suggests that if you go the distance in an internet discussion, Nazism will be mentioned at some point. Jugnauth’s law is that if his speech is long enough, we are sure to hear of the economic miracle. Not that we are not thankful for whatever he claims to have done but surely free rice from Taiwan in the 1980s cannot fill up the stomachs of those living in poverty in 2016.

We cannot fall into the trap that Jugnauth and many other politicians have set for us. The trap where we are forced to vote by guilt because of past accomplishments. This is not personal. But perhaps in his own solipsist ideal, Jugnauth believes that he should matter more to us. Unfortunately, if we want to look to the future and to progress, we have to move on. Our democracy cannot be limited by our emotions. 

During the event in Rivière du Rempart, Yogida Sawmynaden, minister of sports, gave the prime minister a rousing tribute. “Without him at the head of the country, who knows what our destiny would be,” he exclaimed, with the audience shouting in agreement. When Jugnauth leaves the political scene along with the other remnants of his generation of politicians, we’d sure like to find out.