The Real Reasons for the Turbulence in the Government Alliance
08.11.2025
As LALIT predicted, the “Alliance du Changement” is a doomed coalition. It nearly blew up on Thursday before its first birthday as Government.
What a terribly birthday celebration that was!
There are two important levels of deep “causation” of the cracked coalition. Neither are addressed by the Press or on-line contributions to the debate so far. Instead commentators and participants go on-and-on about personality differences and the petty politics of nominations here and there.
This is now LALIT sees it.
LEVEL I
Bérenger Fears Historical Toxic Bankruptcy of this Doomed Alliance
The first level stems from the strength of Bérenger as a person being in a weak position in the alliance.
The strength we refer to is his long-term view of history. He can see ahead, clear as a bell and with reason, that the Labour-MMM-ND-RA coalition will inevitably be remembered for the following irremediably damning three actions, to which he was a party. So, he wants the MMM out as soon as possible, so that his Party and whoever he wants as future leader, are not tainted by this legacy of three major disastrous decisions that will sully, and do enormous political damage, to all who made them, if, in the future, they remain associated with the decisions.
1. Selling Diego Garcia
The Ramgoolam, Bérenger, Duval and Subron coalition will be remembered forever for having effectively sold Diego Garcia to the UK. Bérenger included. But, Bérenger wants to separate himself from this legacy as soon as possible, having realized the political consequences.
Now, with the delay of the House of Lords vote on the issue, postponed on Tuesday, the Diego Garcia and Chagos sell-out just refuses to get behind the Mauritian ruling coalition. When the USA and UK fall, as they will, into disorder with the collapse of their joint Empire, the crime of selling Diego Garcia will become a worse and worse legacy to be saddled with. Everyone will remember those four leaders for this decision. Bérenger does not want to be included in this collective memory. It is a bit late, but he wants out anyway.
2. Withdrawing from “Oral Submissions” Against Israel for its Starvation Policy
The issue of our time is this: Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The fact that the Ramgoolam, Bérenger, Duval and Subron coalition intentionally withdrew the Republic of Mauritius from the list of States due to give “Oral Submissions” against Israel for its starvation policy against Palestinians living in Gaza, is a legacy that no-one can really bear to have to live with. Imagine supporting the US-Israeli genocide to THAT extent. Yes, this coalition changed the Jugnauth regime’s decision to go before the ICJ and give oral submissions against the Israeli Government for intentionally committing genocide by starvation of the Palestinians living in Gaza. People will remember those four leaders for this. What a catastrophic legacy. This, too, makes Bérenger want out. Too late, but he wants out anyway.
3. Abolishing Universal Pensions from 60–65 year-olds
The Ramgoolam, Bérenger, Duval and Subron coalition will be remembered also for destroying a social contract for universal pensions that has been in place from Independence. They have attacked the welfare state. They have pretended it is impossible to tax the rich. They have instead glorified the super-rich, and even continued the politics of selling-off Mauritian land to oligarchs from abroad, even granting them permanent residence and citizenship. While glorifying and de-taxing the super-rich, the coalition has cut the income AS A RIGHT of families by cutting universal pensions. They allow commentators to persist unchallenged with the pre-school level argument that the rich should not be given pensions – as if the coalition is blissfully unaware of the existence of a dead-easy “tax claw-back” of every cent of this money. And now they have set up a technocratic committee to show how it is supposedly “impossible” to pay universal pensions because of “demography”, while failing to monitor productivity increases, or even to predict the increase AI might bring to productivity. None of these technicalities will decrease the total rejection of the entire population of this grotesque breaking of a social contract. The fact that the cost of living continues to rise sharply, only worsens the burden of this legacy that Ramgoolam, Bérenger, Duval and Subron are all saddled with, and that Bérenger wants to avoid.
None of these three hideous decisions were in the PROGRAM of the dratted coalition. Yet within one year, they have attacked every principle of good politics.
They have acted to sell for 100 years part of the Republic of Mauritius to the Western colonial powers, thus attacking the territorial integrity of the country.
They have condoned genocide, even the policy of starving children and other civilians, by US-backed Israeli war criminals wanted by the International Criminal Court.
They have attacked the welfare state.
LEVEL II
The Oligarchs Do Not Share all the Same Interests
Ramgoolam and Bérenger have come to represent different sections of the bourgeoisie, even of the oligarchy, that have diverging interests. Some want the Rupee strong, others favour devaluation of the Rupee, depending on their economic interest. Thus the need of each to have “their” man at the Mauritius Central Bank. So Bérenger and Ramgoolam fight. Some parts of the bourgeoisie want Air Mauritius to continue to ally with the Emirates, others want to ally with Qatar. So, the two leaders fight. This, in turn, causes fights over nominations in all the key places at the Central Bank and in Air Mauritius. And so on.
The bourgeoisie has difficulty in unifying itself politically, and each part hangs on to a part of the Government. The people are nothing but ants during these fights – except if elections are threatening, in which case the oligarchs work to corrupt the Parties, which in turn use the money of the oligarchs to corrupt the electorate.
Conclusion
So, when the coalition breaks, do not hang yourself on to one part of the broken coalition. Fight with the working class against these hangers-on of the super-rich and against the super-rich themselves. The Mamy Ravatomanga scenario, which brought all this to a head, gives an idea of the interests of different sections of the bourgeoisie. It also reminds us that the inequality between the workers at minimum wage level (Rs20,000 or so a month) and the politicians (averaging Rs200,000 a month), though a multiple of 10, which is terrible, is nothing like the income of a politician getting Rs200,000 compared to the oligarch billionaire’s Rs20,00,000 a month, which is a multiple of 100.
None of this is good for democracy, let alone the struggle for socialism and basic class equality
It is time to mobilize at grassroots in each union and in each neighbourhood, to defy the oligarchs by also defying the petty bourgeois leaders like Ramgoolam, Bérenger, Duval and Subron, at the same time. It is not time for the working people to hang on to these parties or other petty bourgeoise ones, worse than these, led by people like Bruneau Laurette and Roshi Bhadain. Workers must support parties that have a working class program, like LALIT, and expand and strengthen their unions, on the basis of, say, these three points in Level I, as a start for a common program.
