The publication of the White Paper on electoral reform comes with a tactical advantage for the Prime Minister. He has succeeded in shifting the glare from the numerous scandals that are plaguing his Government. Everybody or nobody has an opinion on electoral reform.

Whatever may be the merits or otherwise of the White Paper, there is something in it which must be altered. The argument that the trigger for Proportional Representation (PR) to kick in should be set at 10% in order to deter extremist parties. This is a fallacious one and it must be exposed. The main political parties believe that they will always muster more than 10%. That may well be the case but one should not forget that the public does not like it when it is taken for granted or, as someone said, as “dépôt fi xe”. We all know that there is nothing ‘fi xe’ in life and this is even more applicable in politics. All the leaders in this country have lost elections. From Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam to Berenger and Jugnauth. The public reacts in ways that are inscrutable and this is why the system that is finally worked out must be fair to all, including the extremist groups.

No one has defined the contours of what makes a political party an extremist one. I believe that any attempt to drive any group or party underground is undemocratic and this is why the 10% trigger for PR is wrong. In most countries that have PR, the trigger is 5% and it has worked well. There is no compelling reason why the same should not be the case in our ‘plaisir’ country. It is in our national interest that any group, however sectarian or fundamentalist, must be allowed to participate in the electoral process. Leave to the public to condone or condemn. Setting the PR threshold very high will only exacerbate the feeling that they are banned from political life.

I have always been a partisan of freedom for all. It is when talk of exclusion or banning takes place that the fringe groups quit the mainstream for areas which may be undemocratic. It was Mahatma Gandhi who said that it is better to leave all the windows in the house open to all sorts of ideas rather than to close them and stifle debate. The existence of extremist groups cannot be wished away. What a modern society does and must do is to hear them out, expose them for their views and ideas, however unpalatable.

The “Front national” in France is demonized by the media and the so-called right-thinking chatterati and literati. The score of that party at the recent municipal elections shows that popular sympathy travels in mysterious ways. It is when leaders believe that they are all-knowing and all-powerful that they make mistakes. There has never been a kite that went up and stayed up.

The exercise of power is an act of statesmanship. No statesman acts as though he owns the state. History is replete with examples where excesses of power are powerfully dealt with. The will of the people is the will of God. Yanoukovich of Ukraine is the latest example.