MADRID 10 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
This Sunday at 7:00 a.m. (local time), the polling stations for the thirteenth elections being held in the African island country opened in Mauritius after the president, Prithvirajsing Roopun, dissolved the National Assembly by decree on October 4, in the midst of growing social unrest.
Nearly a million people are called to the polls – in a country of just over 1.2 million inhabitants – to elect their representatives in the National Assembly, which has a maximum of 70 seats renewed every five years. .
The prime minister since 2017, re-elected in 2019, Pravind Jugnauth (62), leader of the Militant Socialist Movement, aspires to re-election, although social discontent regarding his figure has grown due to a scandal related to leaks of recordings on social networks. about an alleged plot to wiretap politicians and journalists.
Jugnauth’s main opponent in the elections is the Alliance of Change coalition, led by former Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam.
Among the key issues of the elections, social unrest due to the increase in the prices of gasoline and other basic products, the problem with drug abuse and addiction, and corruption, among others, stand out.
Likewise, added to this is the recent controversy in which the prime minister has been involved.
On November 1, the country’s authorities ordered the suspension of access to social networks until the day after the general elections, only to rectify this decision a few hours later when they recognized the inability of the initiative to put an end to the dissemination of the recordings. .
The scandal was called “the Missie Moustass leaks” (“Mr. Mustacho”, in Mauritius Creole), in reference to the Facebook user who began to disclose these recordings and reproduced them on other platforms such as TikTok or YouTube.
The announcement of the call for elections also came after the United Kingdom and Mauritius revealed a historic agreement reached after two years of negotiations according to which London will return the Chagos archipelago, colonized more than half a century ago, to the African country.
Jugnauth was re-elected in November 2019 for a second five-year term under the coalition led by the center-left Militant Socialist Movement party.
Jugnauth’s coalition managed to win 42 seats against its main rivals, Ramgoolam’s Labor Party and Paul Berenger’s Militant Mauritian Movement, which won 12 and nine seats, respectively.
The current prime minister took office after the mandate of his father, Anerood Jugnauth, which ended in January 2017. Mauritius, a country with almost 1.3 million inhabitants that defines itself as the bridge between Africa and Asia, lives mainly on financial services, manufacturing and tourism.
Add Comment