[Paul Lismore] COMMONWEALTH CITIZENS LIVING HERE FOR MORE THAN 2 YEARS HAVE MORE RIGHTS THAN MAURITIAN CITIZENS

Yes, people, you may have been born in Mauritius, your parents, grand parents, great grand parents may all have been born in Mauritius, as they say "zot nonbri in kapav enterrer a Maurice", but if the conditions created by the bastards we keep voting into power compel you to seek greener pastures abroad and enhance the lifestyle of your family, including those left behind back home, kiss goodbye to your right to vote!

You can still cherish your Mauritian passport, you can still love your segas and Bollywood songs, your taste buds can still spring to life at the thought of a lovely satini bomli griller, ene zoli brede mouroum touffer, ene bon verre Saat Samundar, you can still dream of the sun on our few remaining public beaches when your balls are shrivelling and shaking like castanets in a European winter, but vote in an election?

Eoula! As our civil servants love to tell us when they can't be arsed to be either civil or to serve you, " Ou pena droit sa! La loi dire ou pa ena droit!".

And yet, if you are a Bangla Deshi who came here in 2017, only 2 years ago and can barely speak creole, never mind the English that 'la loi dimander' under section 33(d) of our quite useless Constitution, you can not only vote, but for a few rupees, you will be trained to shout "Oui Pravin, to meme nou mari!".

Indian, Pakistani, South African, European citizens ALL enjoy the right to vote in our elections if they pass the 2 year qualification period or, if they are one of the 3000 applicants given Mauritian citizenship by our gorgeous ti cretin, you can vote straightaway!

But if you are a Mauritian citizen by birth and by ancestry of several generations, fuck you if you decide to not live here and share the delights of la cuisine, the marvellous driving skills of your fellow citizens, the traffic jams and black smoke bellowing vehicles that help us to breathe better, and listen to lying, cheating, thieving politicians trying to con you to vote for them. We have to do that every day in Mauritius, and we cannot see why you should deprive yourselves of those pleasures.....

Hundreds of thousands of Mauritians emigrated for a variety of reasons over the years: In the immediate post independence period, an intensive, poisonous campaign by the PMSD, based on an overt and inexcusable platform of "Malbar nou pa ouler", raised the spectre of everyone wearing langoutis or saris and persuaded many of the top and middle ranking civil servants to move to either apartheid South Africa or to the no less racist at that time, Australia.

There followed a period of mass unemployment and tens of thousands of our compatriots then enrolled on nursing courses, esp in the UK, and stayed on after qualifying and raised families. Many thousands were also helped by a more emollient and gentlemanly Sir Gaetan Duval to obtain visas for France.

That pattern of emigration has continued, and there are now some 300,000 Mauritians living abroad, sending billions of rupees back home, and all being served terribly badly by High Commissioners drawing huge salaries, incredible privileges, and doing next to fuck all.

I don't know about you, but this sounds terribly wrong to me. Depriving Mauritian citizens of the right to vote in a country that is still referred to as home by all of them sounds unnecessarily cruel to me. I fear there is only one reason for this gross injustice: POLITICS!

Mauritians who emigrate invariably benefit from a better educational system, far better media that will give them the news in a much less partisan way than our laughably 'free and independent' press could ever do in Mauritius, and therefore are likely to be more knowledgeable about the real issues facing Mauritius.

Many in Mauritius revere politicians who make ludicrous promises to them, designed entirely to buy their votes; most Mauritians from abroad love to exercise their creole language by responding " B kot larzan la pou sorti, LKTM?" whenever they hear thieving politicians say " Mo pou donne zot". Which of course should be the right response to any bullshitter trying to reward you with something bought with your own money.

So, don't expect any of our politicians to do what at least 115 countries in the world do: allow their citizens, wherever they may be in the world, to vote. In Mauritius, Mauritians are not allowed to even stand as candidate in a General Election if they declare themselves as Mauritians, instead of the divisive groupings that politicians have designed especially to divide and rule us!

Even in Namibia, Namibian citizens living abroad have been allowed to vote in national elections since 2014, when amendments were made to the Electoral Act 2009. Namibian expatriates may vote at temporary registration points, usually set up at Namibian embassies or high commissions. In South Africa, Section 10 of Electoral Act 73 of 1998, allows South African citizens living abroad to retain the right to vote in national elections, with no expiry date. Expatriate citizens wishing to vote must do so in person at a South African embassy, consulate or high commission.

These are just two examples out of over 115 countries around the world. Our Mauritian embassies abroad are too busy acting as chauffeurs or as makro for visiting ministers and their cousins/cousines or to gratte fesse ene la zournee...

So, when you attend a meeting and you see a Bangla Deshi next to you shouting "Pravin nou le roi!", remember this: that man has more rights than your brother or sister living abroad. Same as the South Africans keen to make Riviere Noire the Bloemfontein of Mauritius, or the Indians and Pakistanis etc who have been given the right that has been callously removed from Mauritians abroad.

Rights that have been removed by politicians who mostly have dual or even triple nationality themselves....The hypocrites!