General Election, 10 November 2024

On 10 November 2024 Mauritius voted for a new parliament, directly electing 62 MPs using a block vote system (International IDEA n.d.). Mauritius is divided into 20 constituencies. In 19 of these, voters cast three ballots for three seats, and in one constituency (Rodrigues) there are two ballots for two seats. The three candidates with the most votes in the constituency (two in Rodrigues) each secure a seat in parliament (IPU Parline n.d.). The Office of the Electoral Commissioner (OEC) is an independent body responsible for elections, composed of one non-partisan commissioner elected by the Judicial and Legal Service Commission. The commissioner is supported by several electoral officers (Office of the Electoral Commissioner n.d.).

On 3 October, Mauritius reached an agreement with UK on the sovereignty of the Chagos Archipelago, which will now belong to Mauritius. However, the biggest island, Diego Garcia, will be leased by the US for 99 years due to its military base on the island. Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth stated that it was “a good deal” for Mauritius, and that the lease would provide the nation with billions of rupees (Le Mauricien 2024a). Opposition member Nandcoomar Bodha criticized the agreement as well as the timing of the announcement, which he claimed was electorally motivated. Bodha added that the decision was a crime against humanity on the Chagossian community (Le Mauricien 2024b). 

At the end of October, Mauritius faced a wiretapping scandal where conversations between journalists, politicians, police, the wife of the Prime Minister and others was leaked on social media (Mnisi 2024; Earally 2024). Incumbent Prime Minister Jugnauth together with the police claimed that the recordings were AI-generated. However, journalists informed Reporters without Borders they were genuine (Usaini 2024). In response to the scandal, the communications regulator ordered a ban on social media from 1 November–11 November, covering the period until after the elections. Facing civil society criticism and opposition claims that it was an attempt to control the information environment (Anganan 2024), the government reversed the decision on 2 November (AfricaNews 2024).

According to African Union and SADC observers, the election period in Mauritius was peaceful, transparent and professional. SADC observers commented that efforts to promote and ensure women’s participation in politics were lacking, as only 18 per cent of the 891 candidates were female (SADC 2024). 68 per cent of polling staff, on the other hand, were women (AU 2024). The SADC mission expressed concerns that counting was done the day after polling day at a different location, and that  public information material was insufficient (SADC 2024).

The election results were a landslide victory for the opposition Alliance of Change, which secured all 60 seats in parliament (Office of the Electoral Commissioner 2024). This left the Alliance of Change without opposition, the third time in history with a 60-0 result. Mauritius uses a “Best Loser System”, which gives the Electoral Commissioner the right to appoint up to eight members of parliament to ensure some seats for opposition. After the result, the commissioner appointed two candidates from Alliance Lepep and two candidates from Alliance Liberation on this basis (Deedarun-Guérin 2024; Hilbert 2024). Voter turnout was 79.30 per cent, the highest since 2010 (Hilbert 2024).