“There are various ways to recruit,” was Minister of Health Anil Gayan’s reply to Shakeel Mohamed’s question about the recruitment of Vijaya Sumputh, allegedly a very close ‘friend’ of the minister, who did not have to go through the hiring process.

Indeed, you could advertise the position and allow people to apply and then select the most suitable candidate for the post. It is called meritocracy. You know, that word which we hear until we are sick of it every five years at election time. You could equally advertise and rig the whole process so that by the time the job has been advertised, everyone already knows who will be selected to fill the position. It is called an eyewash – something we are very familiar with. Or you could dispense with all that and offer the position to a person of your own choice. After all, as Gayan explained in parliament on Tuesday, “Government is government and government decides!” If you decide to recruit from the large pool of people present in your lounge at a family dinner or even in the privacy of your own bedroom, who can challenge your choice? It’s not as if we – helpless mortals – had any say in what goes on in our country once we have elected a government to take all the decisions for us. “Is there any other candidate in this republic who could be better suited than the person you have appointed?” asked Mohamed. The answer was so beautiful: “I am not aware of that.” There most probably were none where the job offer was made.

Equally, you can either choose to be forward-looking and allow for institutions to be as independent as they can be or you could look back to the days when the Director of Public Prosecutions was subjected to the control of a non-elected politician in the form of the attorney general – a practice which was qualifi ed by experts as being “unconstitutional” and “should be brought to an end”. These legal men and women concluded by saying: “we have heard it said that the legal system in Mauritius is apt to catch the fl ies and miss the hornets.” Government is government and government decides!

If you want to “fi nish the former prime minister”, you can either allow the justice system to take its course or take the law into your own hands, collude with a thug and interrogate two expats in the privacy of a house, intimidate them and prevent them from leaving the country until they ‘confess’ to what you want to hear.

If you want to run the country, you can either gain people’s confi dence by ticking the boxes of the promises you made, such as the old age pension, the salary increase, transparency in recruitment, meritocracy, dropping the price of petrol, introducing a Freedom of Information Act, making your ministers accountable and available to answer questions, dealing with law and order, making everyone feel part of your government irrespective of their political board… Or you could dwell on the shortcomings of a government which the population has thrown out in the most disgraceful way. The choice is yours. Government is government and government decides!

As a citizen, you can either keep those you have elected on their toes by drawing their attention to any excesses and totalitarian tendencies that governments with comfortable majorities tend to have or you could just sit back and give them more rope to hang themselves. As we did with the prev ious government.

And at the next election, you can either choose to jump into the Karaille or you could prefer the option of falling in difé. There is more than one way to recruit, behave, drown a dog or skin a cat.

Note de la rédaction :  Une malencontreuse erreur s’est glissée lors de la publication de l’éditorial. Le mauvais texte a été mis en ligne précédemment. Nous nous en excusons.