Electoral reform was the subject of the first PNQ in the National Assembly last week. According to radio reports I heard via the Internet, the PM did not add anything concrete apart from proposing post May Day consultations.

«L?express» yesterday also reported the thinking of Mr Paul Berenger on electoral reforms. Specifically, MMM is sympathetic to a National Assembly with 2/3 of its members elected according to our current First Past the Post system (FPTP) and the remaining 1/3 selected according to a (Proportional Representation) Party List system.

I concur with Mr Paul Berenger that «C?est un bon compromis». Retaining the current 62 FPTP seats and supplementing it with about 20 seats for the Party List system leads to about 82 seats in the National Assembly. This, I believe, is too many seats given the 1.26 million population base of Mauritius.

What should be an adequate size for our National Assembly? I have consulted Wikipedia and found two countries which straddle Mauritius in terms of population size and governance. The first one is Trinidad and Tobago with a population size of 1.33 million. Currently, its House of Representatives comprises 41 members each elected from single seat constituencies while its Senate comprises 31 members nominated by the Prime Minister (16), Leader of Opposition (6) and President (9). The Cabinet is made up of members from both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The second country with a population size of 1.16 million is a new democracy, East Timor, which uses a parallel party list system. In the election prior to its accession to Independence in 2002, 88 seats were allocated. However in the recent 30 June 2007 election, this was cut down to 65 seats!

Benchmarking on the parliamentary systems of Trinidad and Tobago and East Timor, an adequate size for our National Assembly is about 60-70 seats. It is my profound conviction that keeping the number of seats low in our National Assembly will also go a long way towards eradicating mediocrity in our local politics.

Here is my suggestion on how to achieve electoral reform while simultaneously addressing some of the shortcomings of our parliamentary representation.

First, cut down the number of FPTP seats in each constituency from 3 to 2. I do not think 2 elects will be less effective at representing their constituents and even then the number of constituents per elect will be low when compared to other countries.

Second, legislate that each party must present a male and a female candidate. Although this will not guarantee gender parity in our National Assembly, it will certainly bring about a much needed leap-frog in female presence in our governance.

With this suggestion, our National Assembly will consist of 42 FPTP elects from 21 constituencies and about 20 Party List elects i.e. a total of 62 seats. The merit of a low (but adequate) number of seats is it will force parties to scour for the best candidates and thereby mitigate the number of "nimporte" candidates. I am for electoral reform but I am completely against increasing the number of seats in the National Assembly. Right-sizing our National Assembly is fundamental to breeding quality in our governance.

<B>By Dr Singfat CHU</B> <I>Singapore</I>