Our responsible and constructive opposition will be starting its constructive job today. And, so as to be constructive, it could or could not table a vote of no confidence depending on what government decides to do. This would also be a constructive way, according to the leader of the opposition, to express its dissatisfaction with the way the new Speaker has been conducting the affairs of the National Assembly so far.

What way, what affairs, would you ask? I’m not too sure myself but former Speaker Dev Ramnah has probably been busy counselling the opposition, seeing that he was present when Mr Bérenger made an unprecedented move last week and walked into the building he had spent the past fifteen years criticising. Anyhow. Let’s not stop at petty things and let’s be as constructive as the opposition.

Pravind Jugnauth, who spoke at the opposition’s press conference last weekend, says government does not have a mandate to remove the president of the Republic. Fair enough. He has a point. His stand, however begs another question: does Pravind Jugnauth, non elected leader of the MSM, have a mandate to sit beside the leader of the opposition at a press conference of the opposition (we gather it was meant to be the parliamentary opposition that called the press conference) and criticise the mandate or lack of it, of the government? He believes he does. As does his partner Paul Bérenger as well as other members of the MSM.

Reason and logic, however, would require any political party to take stock after an election especially when it has been defeated. Decency would require of the leader who has not been elected (whereas his party has had 11 elected members) to hibernate, take stock, and question his every move and every strategy and maybe even resign as leader. In the UK, that’s what the leader of a political party that has lost would have done. My goodness, even Tony Blair, Prime minister though he still is, is expected to resign in the near future because of the performance of his party in the recent elections.

In Mauritius, however, things don’t quite work this way. The MSM tells us the members have unanimously decided to re-elect Pravind Jugnauth and so the latter comes and happily talks to the press on behalf of the elected opposition. The MSM is not the only political party with erratic and arrogant behaviour; the MMM insists on blaming everyone but themselves for their defeat and seems happy repeatedly using one and the same argument: “Only 49% of the people have voted for the government.”

I suppose the only way the present behaviour of the opposition could be constructive would be for the new government to realise what arrogance can do to people, what a damaging effect power can have, if you let it. And heed the warning. So they do not give in to the dizziness that comes with power, so they realise that power comes and goes. And, as hard as it may be to let go of power, one has no choice. What remains, is the difficulty of getting rid of that other addiction: arrogance.