After an intense and fierce electoral campaign on both sides, all parties went through a rest period during the past week. But it seems this is already over. The rally organised by the winners – the Social Alliance – to thank its electors has sounded the death knell of the quiet era.

The opposition leader, Paul Bérenger, was the main target of the government. Navin Ramgoolam said the defeat of the MSM-MMM alliance is due only to the “betrayal, arrogance and one-man show of Paul Bérenger”. The PM wanted to reply to Bérenger who had said his alliance had lost the elections because of a “communal campaign”.

The deputy prime minister, minister of Finance and Economy, Rama Sithanen, seized the opportunity of the rally to say how catastrophic the economic situation was after the MSM-MMM régime. The minister said that the situation is even worse than he had thought and suggested that Paul Bérenger had hidden the real statistics from the public. For him, the government was “irresponsible” in the way it managed the economy.

Xavier-Luc Duval, another DPM and minister of Tourism, Leisure and External Communications expressed the same opinion. “In the coming days, people will realise how much damage the outgoing government has left behind.”

<B>The presidency is an institution and should be respected as such as long as the president doesn’t bypass the rules. Such open threats are not conducive to making the public respect the institution.</B>

The government has not missed any opportunity to outline the incompetence of the outgoing team – which, after all, is perfectly fair in politics. However, the real problem was when the PM took it out on the president of the Republic, Sir Anerood Jugnauth. “He should be careful,” declared the PM speaking of the president.

The fact that Sir Anerood was a MSM die-hard is not questioned. Moreover, he is the father of the current MSM leader. However, the president is supposed to be neutral and nothing in his behaviour could give a hint that he will take advantage of this situation to favour his former party. The presidency is an institution and should be respected as such as long as the president doesn’t bypass the rules. Such open threats are not conducive to making the public respect the institution.

This was obvious when the new government took oath last Thursday. Navin Ramgoolam had promised during the campaign that the ministers’ swearing-in ceremony would not be done “secretly” at the State House but before the people. This is what happened at Place d’Armes in front of 3,000 people.

Tension was palpable between the president and the PM on that day. The fact that Navin Ramgoolam had chosen to do it out of the State House may have caused some tension – the more so as he had given as excuse that he had a “pooja” at the time he was to receive his letter of appointment from the president and he did not turn up at Le Réduit. The crowd did not help the president feel more comfortable as they booed him.

The government can’t dismiss the president unless he violates the Constitution or performs any other serious act of misconduct. But how long will Sir Anerood Jugnauth endure such public humiliation?

The rally organised on Sunday also showed a serious Navin Ramgoolam, who is not prepared “to tolerate lawlessness and laziness”. He looks determined to rule the country and to “put it back on the rails”. He knows that many Mauritians rely on him for a better life and he “intends to keep his promises”. The public swearing-in was one of them. He has threatened his own team, saying he will not hesitate to dismiss ministers who don’t perform.

Mauritians do not really expect the new government to bring up major reforms or construction projects for the moment. What the population expects is “positive changes in its daily life”. This may have been one of the biggest mistakes of the outgoing government, which insisted on economic recovery during its electoral campaign. Even if this was true for some sectors, the argument didn’t convince the majority, whose baskets were empty when they got out of supermarkets.

Navin Ramgoolam seems to have started his mandate pretty well. On his first appearance on television, he immediately said that two measures announced in his manifesto would be put into practice in the coming weeks… As if to show his determination to make a better Mauritius. If he continues to keep the promises he made to the population during the campaign, Mauritius can only be the winner!