In the autumn of 1965 Sir Anthony Greenwood congregated in London the leaders of the main political parties at Lancaster House. The UK government wanted to hear their positions on a possible constitution for an independent Mauritius and also about the best possible electoral system for a sustainable democracy.

The debate during those days of September were centred mainly on a transition from an existing system of one member constituency to a twenty 3-member constituencies. Most of the delegates agreed, on the basis of the 1959 election results, that a fairly representative parliament can only be achieved by the introduction of multi member constituencies.

The UK government’s proposal in the words of Lord Taylor, under Secretary of State for Colonies and Chairman of the conference, was that we should have twenty 2-member constituencies plus another twenty deputies nominated by way of a Party List.

Then on the 22nd of September … Drama! Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam made a walk-out! Followed by Sir Abdool Razack Mohamed. SSR requested from the UK delegation a guarantee in the draft constitution that there be a separate electoral roll for Muslims and Chinese.” That in constituencies where the so called ‘reserved seats’ were provided, all electors should vote for a Muslim or Chinese candidate.

Worse, … people from Muslim and Chinese origin could only stand for elections in those constituencies with ‘reserved seats’, nowhere else!

The UK delegation objected on the grounds that this would bring some sort of institutional communalism within the constitution and in the words of Professor S.A.De Smith “would be to intensify communalism by endowing it with the accolade of legitimacy”. 

Sookdeo Bissoondoyal and Gaetan Duval shared the concerns of the UK representatives and supported the twenty 2-member constituencies with 20 on Party List. SSR told the conference that this “would be against the interests of his Labour party”. He left the conference, followed by Sir A.R.Mohamed.

The next day Lord Taylor had a meeting with only the representatives of the Muslim Action Committee, R. Mohamed, R.Osman and H.Abdool. They agreed to a twenty 3-member constituencies plus 8 reserved seats for minority ethnic communities.

Thus was born the controversy-tainted  Best Loser System. Indeed a ‘compromise’ as claimed Navin Ramgoolam this week.

But surely a compromise between a much more rightist ‘communal roll’ and some form of positive ‘affirmative action’ for ethnic minority representation.

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Ref:  UK National Archives, CO 1036/1171 and         CAB 133/219.