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Mauritius Toward Independence
After World War II, the pace of constitutional reform
quickened as Britain began to loosen its grip on its
colonies. In
Mauritius this transformation was presided over by Donald
Mackenzie Kennedy, governor from 1942 to 1949. A
consultative
committee, which for the first time included
representatives of
all Mauritian communities, made suggestions for a new
constitution. In addition to providing for a Legislative
Council
that was more representative, the new constitution
expanded the
franchise in 1947 to all adults able to write their names
in any
of the island's languages. In the 1948 election, eleven of
the
nineteen candidates winning seats in the Legislative
Council were
Hindu. However, Governor Mackenzie Kennedy assured the
dominance
of British and Franco-Mauritian interests by nominating
twelve
conservatives to the body--some seats were appointed and
others
elected. This tactic was repeated after the 1953 election
by Sir
Hilary Blood, the new governor.
A new constitution in 1958 included several changes
that
increased political participation. It provided for
suffrage to
adults over twenty-one years of age and divided the
country into
forty single-member constituencies that elected
representatives
to the Legislative Council. Also, to assure representation
of
more constituencies, the constitution allowed the governor
to
appoint to the council "best losers," candidates whose
support
was not quite enough to win their races. In the 1959
election,
the MLP won twenty-three seats, the Independent Forward
Block
(IFB) five, the Committee for Muslim Action (Comité
d'Action
Musulman--CAM) five, the Mauritian Party (Parti
Mauricien--PM)
three, and Independents three. The governor awarded
best-loser
seats to the PM and to Chinese candidates.
After negotiations among the major parties in 1961, the
British decided that the winning party's leader in the
1963
election would become premier. In addition, the
Legislative
Council would become the Legislative Assembly, and the
Executive
Committee would become the Council of Ministers. The new
government would be responsible for all but the island's
defense,
internal security, and foreign affairs. Although the PM
leader,
Gaetan Duval, put up strong competition, the MLP, under
Ramgoolam, won the election with nineteen seats. Leery
that a
Hindu victory would jeopardize its economic position, the
Creole
community expressed unease and opposition in May 1965
riots that
left several dead.
A constitutional conference held in London in 1965,
with
members of all political parties present, decided that the
island
should become independent from Britain as soon as general
elections returned a party in favor of such a notion. Some
parties, however, opposed independence. The
Franco-Mauritian
community and many of the island's Creoles backed the
Mauritian
Social Democratic Party (Parti Mauricien Social
Démocrate--PMSD,
formerly the PM), which strongly advocated continued "free
association" with Britain. The PMSD representatives walked
out of
the constitutional conference when it became apparent that
one
price for independence would be the incorporation of the
Chagos
Archipelago (formerly administered from Mauritius) into
the
planned British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) along with
portions
of Seychelles. Other conferees, represented by the CAM,
feared
that their constituents would be placed at a disadvantage.
In the
end, the CAM joined the MLP and the IFB to form the
winning
coalition in the decisive general election of August 7,
1967. A
Commonwealth of Nations observer team was satisfied that
the
highly participatory election was fair. The winning
coalition
took thirty-nine of the sixty-two seats in the assembly.
Data as of August 1994
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