Jeeha for PM puts MMM in leadership crisis

Jeeha on the extreme left in the picture with Uteem and Berenger

The MMM this week saw a sudden leadership crisis emerge with Pradeep Jeeha’s bid to run as the party’s Prime Ministerial candidate in the next General Elections.

And Jeeha is not alone in this bid, said a source to WorldFutureTv today, adding that the crisis will send the MMM backward in its attempt to regain political power in Mauritius.

This came about after the party’s leadership went adrift with Reza Uteem’s supposedly supporting a MMM-Labour coalition that would face the other parties in the next elections.

Uteem is said to have the support of a Labour Party Member of the Parliament (MP) in Port Louis, Adil Ameer Meea. Ameer Meea is said to have allied with Jeeha on the latter’s bid to vie for the Prime Minister’s post while Uteem has been on Jeeha’s side for some time now. That is if our readers remember how they tried to demonise WorldFutureTv as a small organisation that cannot have any impact in Mauritius!

“This would go against the MMM’s current leadership alignment in which Paul Berenger is the leader and the de-facto candidate for Prime Ministership,” said a source close to the MMM.

The source, who spoke to WorldFutureTv said Berenger is currently in a difficult situation in which his most trusted colleagues in the party are now thinking of toppling him.

“The idea behind Jeeha’s attempt to be the next PM candidate for the MMM is that there is a strong movement to prevent Madan Dulloo from rising within the party’s ranks,” said the source.

The current crisis is characteristic of the infighting that has ravaged throughout the MMM’s leadership since the 2014 electoral defeat of the party at the hands of the L’alliance Lepep.

It is said the Uteem-Ameer Meea duo are in support of Jeeha’s leadership bid since they argued that the MMM should go in the elections with a Hindu candidate as Prime Minister, which the source said is an open conflict now in the hands of Berenger.

The source said the problem of leadership arose when Berenger showed his leaning towards Dulloo, though we do not know whether Berenger was seriously thinking of Dulloo as the potential Deputy Prime Minister if he was to run as Prime Minister.

The source also said Jeeha has so far failed in most of his enterprises within the MMM, getting booted out of Parliament and failing to return to the MP’s job since then.

On the other hand, the Sunday Times of Mauritius said yesterday in a report on its website that there were signs Berenger was acting against Ameer Meea.

The article narrates that the MMM wanted to « cut down to size » the MP Ameer Meea. It cited circles close to Ameer Meea saying it would be a dishonest and insane attempt by the MMM to demonise its MP. They said the party has a presence in the constituency no3 thanks to Ameer Meea.

However, the MMM has always proven that it can rebuild its power base in almost any constituencies despite losing through the departures or the removal of top notch and high flying MP’s and political figures from its roster.

This has happened during the party’s rich history of breakups and breakdowns, in which several MMM leaders born within the party was either made to leave or left after falling out with the party leadership.

Former Minister Bashir Kodabux is one such example, as well as that of Kader Bhayat and Rashid Beebeejaun.