Panic rips across political parties in Mauritius
A sense of panic has gripped most political formations in Mauritius after the publication of a survey on the political sentiments in the country.
Only a day after the publication of the survey by Worldfuturetv.com, an online news portal, at least two political parties debated the results of the survey.
While the Labour Party wrote to Worldfuturetv.com to seek clarification on the veracity of the survey – which we confirmed as true and coming from a trusted source – the Mouvement Militant Mauricien (MMM) had a rowdy polit–bureau meeting on Monday.
As for the ruling Movement Socialist Militant (MSM) and the Movement Liberateur (ML), they are said to be pretty aware of the reality of their political future.
MMM chaos
However, the MMM’s bureau meeting saw personal attacks on the owner of Worldfuturetv.com, Kazi Mahmood a Mauritian citizen living in Malaysia, whom elements of the party said were anti-imperialist and pro-Arab.
One of the members who is a deputy to the leader, is said to have prepared a document containing articles from Worldfuture as evidence of the ‘anti-imperialistic’ or anti-Amrican stance of Kazi Mahmood.
The high ranking member, who’s name was not mentioned in the survey as a potential crowd-puller if the MMM were to chose a member of the Hindu community as its deputy PM candidate in a snap poll, also believe Worldfuture is funded by an Arab country.
The two members, who are from the Hindu community, also believe their chances are now gone with the survey mentioning Madan Dulloo as the candidate that could win the MMM the elections if it were to take place.
They are apparently supported by a Muslim MP who also believe Kazi Mahmood is an anti-American campaigner and is pro-Arab, perhaps Saudi Arabia.
He said Worldfuture operates from abroad, is foreign funded and is – strangely enough – disrupting the MMM’s position in the political landscape.
What set him off into this diatribe was the fact that the Worldfuture owner is well-known for his anti-MMM stance and they could not understand – pitifully enough – that as an independent organisation Worldfuture published the findings of the survey without bias.
The survey gave the MMM as the winner of a snap poll by a margin of 38-42 if it its leader Paul Berenger were to have Madan Dulloo as his deputy.
This will mean Berenger will become the next Prime Minister of Mauritius, with the MMM defeating the other parties.
And this is what the three party leaders were arguing about: How can an anti-MMM journalist publish a survey that says their party will win the elections?
Hilarious, is it not?
But we are told Paul Berenger has taken the news of the survey seriously, perhaps even considering redrawing his party lineup before the auspicious polls?
Now, let us answer their accusations:
1. Funded by Arab country: No, we are an open organisation that is not funded by anyone, Arab or otherwise.
We follow the Google principle that content is free, and since it is free on our portal, we do not earn money from it.
The members of Worldfuturetv.com are all employed in their respective companies where they hold positions, such as Kazi Mahmood being the Business Editor of Malay Mail, a daily paper in Malaysia.
Cordoba Ali is a member of an NGO in Indonesia and he is our international editorial advisor.
Isa Selamat is our Indonesia expert, that is all Indonesian stories will be vetted by him before it goes on our portal.
We have an art editor, and one of our editors just left the organisation to focus on his own job at an international media firm.
Other than that, we have a few correspondents across the globe who contributes story ideas to our editorial team.
That is what Worldfuture is about and what we do is pretty simple too.
We break stories when we have them because we cannot publish them in the papers where we operate.
This gives us a lot of space to play with and that is how the breaking news about the survey – denied by the Indian High Commission in Port Louis indeed and reported proudly by the Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation in a biased manner – came about.
We maintain the survey is real, truthfully reported and the source that gave us the tip of the iceberg is a trusted source that has provided numerous tips that were proven correct over time and again.
Other than that, we predicted that the MSM alliance will win the 2014 elections, we also predicted Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam was on the verge of losing his seat – which he did.
We also said, in 2014, the wave of the Vire Mam will shrink the MMM’s vote, and it did.
So, readers, we are a trusted agency and you are not losing your time following our news here.
In December we informed our followers that Pravind Jugnauth will be anointed PM in January 2017, which he was while we also said he risk being the shortest lived PM in Mauritius history.
And this is on the verge of becoming true, it seems if he buckles down and dissolves the Parliament soon.