Being intelligent is no guarantee against making unintelligent statements. We all know people with brilliant minds who occasionally come up with the most inane statements and make gigantic mistakes of judgement, particularly when common sense is required. 

A lifetime of praise and pats on the back perhaps leads intelligent people to be so locked up in the logic of being always right that they simply do not see the obvious signs visible to the rest of us. One can, therefore, understand why several personalities at different times have been coming up with the same old idea of “government of national unity”, without actually thinking its implications through. How do they overlook the reasons, obvious to all of us ordinary men and women, why such a proposal is still-born?!  

To begin with, if ever there was a need for a government of national unity; if ever there was a pre-disposition of the population to accept that notion, it is definitely not now. The population is currently very hurt and is continuously licking its wounds after all the ills inflicted upon it by a reckless government that is bent on squandering public funds, favouring its cronies and leaving the rest of the population out in the cold. Before even Covid started haunting us, it was clear what the government priorities were: borrowing and spending money on grand projects to brag about and which bring back little in terms of revenue and meaningful jobs. Think of the billions squandered on Safe City cameras, Côte d’Or stadium, tramway… and think how much more useful that money could have served us if it had been spent on developing an industry like fishing, instead of allowing foreign boats to sweep our vast deep blue seas clean while we are importing seafood of dubious quality. 

Besides, I don’t think that Mauritius has forgotten the blatant cronyism underlying the contracts dished up during the lockdown by a government that was only interested in rummaging through our pockets and giving millions of our hard-earned rupees to friends and mistresses described as childhood friends in an episode that led to one confirmed murder and a few deaths under very suspicious circumstances. A ‘government of national unity’ headed by the same prime minister is a clear invitation to more looting, more squandering of public funds, more cronyism and more of the same.

Apart from our finances, look at the state of our institutions and how inept the men and women heading many of them are! How is that likely to change with the same people in place? Who would be able to dislodge all the cronies crowding our now barely functional institutions without a proper cleanup at all levels? 

The current government is built on cronyism, patronage, opacity and propaganda while kicking the can down the road. Having “everyone work together” is the best way of putting an end to any hope of transparency, meritocracy and the sanitisation of our institutions. 

The concept of a ‘government of national unity’ will continue to come up again and again, especially as more and more chickens come home to roost. It will come through various sources, mostly close or wishing to get close to the government. It is an unacceptable idea for more than one reason. It is a chatwa concept even when it comes from non-chatwas. It is dictatorial as it does not have the blessing of the population. It is also suicidal as it puts an end to the few checks and balances left. 

Most of all, we didn’t mandate anyone to take away our democratic rights no matter how dire the economic situation is. If the current government can’t run the country, as seems to be the principle underlying the call for a ‘government of national unity’, then they should make way for those who can by calling fresh elections, presenting a new, competent team and allowing the population to decide. That is the only democratic option they have. The rest is background music that has to stop at some point so the country can tackle the business at hand.