1983 and Second Tenure As Prime Minister
In early April 1983, Jugnauth formed a new party, the Mouvement Socialiste Militant (MSM), which, in May, amalgamated with the PSM led by Boodhoo, and was renamed the Militant Socialist Movement (MSM). However, the new government lacked a majority in the legislative assembly, and Jugnauth was obliged to dissolve the assembly in June. New elections were set for August 1983.Re-elected at the general elections held on 23 August 1983, Jugnauth was re-elected as prime minister The MMM fought the election alone. Jugnauth's MSM formed a new coalition - called the Alliance - with the Labour Party and the PMSD, the very parties that only a year ago had been ousted from power by the MMM, which was then led by Jugnauth.
The popular vote was very close (for detail see 1983 Legislative Assembly election results). The MMM received 209 845 votes (46.4%) - the highest proportion of the vote ever received by a single party in any Mauritian election. The Alliance received 236 146 votes (52.22%); independents and the Rodrigues parties got the remaining 1.38% and two seats. Of the 552 800 registered voters, 452 221 (81.8%) had voted. When seats were distributed, however, the Alliance held a substantial majority - 46 to the 22 received by the MMM. The disproportionate weighting of seats reflects the fact that MMM votes were concentrated in urban constituencies where large numerical majorities won only three seats, whereas the Alliance swept the rural constituencies where Hindus predominated. The election was a personal victory for Jugnauth and something of a comeback for Duval, who became deputy prime minister, and Ramgoolam, who was named Governor-General shortly after.
Commenting on the MMM's fourteen months in power and the outcome of the 1983 election, Bowman (1991, 87) remarks that Mauritius worked itself "through a tumultuous political period in an orderly, constitutional way, without violence. Prominent leaders left power gracefully and allowed other parties and individuals to accede to leadership roles." And whereas the MMM had been historically viewed as a more radical party than the MLP, once in power it actually provided considerable continuity of leadership.
Read more about this topic: Anerood Jugnauth
Famous quotes containing the words prime minister, tenure, prime and/or minister:
“If one had to worry about one’s actions in respect of other people’s ideas, one might as well be buried alive in an antheap or married to an ambitious violinist. Whether that man is the prime minister, modifying his opinions to catch votes, or a bourgeois in terror lest some harmless act should be misunderstood and outrage some petty convention, that man is an inferior man and I do not want to have anything to do with him any more than I want to eat canned salmon.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)
“A politician never forgets the precarious nature of elective life. We have never established a practice of tenure in public office.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“In time, after a dozen years of centering their lives around the games boys play with one another, the boys’ bodies change and that changes everything else. But the memories are not erased of that safest time in the lives of men, when their prime concern was playing games with guys who just wanted to be their friendly competitors. Life never again gets so simple.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“[T]he minister preached a sermon on Jonah and the whale, at the end of which an old chief arose and declared, “We have heard several of the white people talk and lie; we know they will lie, but this is the biggest lie we ever heard.””
—Administration in the State of Miss, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)