PRESIDENT MICHEL HAS BEEN REBUFFED BY THE PEOPLE
President James Michel suffered a major political defeat this week, in his crude attempt to silence the voice of the official opposition in the National Assembly. The people of
The opposition SNP, which went into the election in an alliance with the DP and fielded candidates in all the constituencies, accused Michel of a hidden agenda in dissolving the Assembly. The SPPF they said wanted a two thirds majority to change the Constitution. The opposition warned that this would tantamount to the return of a one party state, similar to the one imposed by the SPPF leader, Albert Rene, after he grabbed power by violent means 30 years ago this year.
The National Assembly was dissolved prematurely by presidential decree on March 26th , in a manner which has been described as a gross violation of the spirit of the Constitution. When President Michel gave the Speaker Macgregor of the Assembly written notice of his intention to dissolve the Assembly in March which, according to the Constitution, he must do before the dissolution can be gazetted and legally take effect, Macgregor kept the information secret rather than publicly inform all the members of the Assembly – which he is required to do as the titular head of the Legislature. Instead he summoned all the members to a formal sitting under a false agenda to give President Michel the opportunity to announce that the Assembly would be dissolved the next day. Then Macgregor adjourned the sitting without allowing the Leader of the Opposition and other members the opportunity to reply to the state of the nation message.
The result of the election, which returned 7 directly elected members of the opposition against 18 SPPF members, leaves the SPPF one seat short of the two thirds required to change the Constitution – the same position they were in before the dissolution; this after spending, what many observers of the local politics estimate, a staggering SR 10 million literally, it is alleged, buying votes in opposition strongholds with crisp SR 500 notes. Interestingly, and perhaps not coincidentally, the amount of rupees notes in circulation increased by SR 10.5 million between March 31 and April 30th according to the Central Bank’s published figures.
The SR500 note was introduced in July 2005 ostensibly because inflation had reduced the value of the SR100 note which then was the highest denomination. Critics, however, claimed that the note was needed to facilitate the bribing of voters – many of whom are one-parent families living below the poverty line in the government housing estates.
Many occupants of the government built housing estates earn about SR 900 a month as a part-time carer or have a partner working as a stevedore earning incomes intermittently. A large number of families cannot make ends meet, are unable to pay their rent, electricity and water. Those who have been able to pay off their loans now cannot keep their flats in good repair. According to a government household survey conducted between 1999 and 2000, the poverty line was SR 836 per person – the amount of expenditure below which the person would be living in absolute poverty. Most households contain between two or three persons.
The Social Security system – trumpeted by Rene during the one-party state as a cradle to grave welfare state has but collapsed as the government siphons off 75% of its revenue to support the Government budget in order to give the semblance that it is practicing a balanced budget policy. Staff at the Social Security Fund are instructed not to give more than SR 500 per month in social assistance and only for three months at a time. In such desperation and caught in the poverty trap many voted with their stomach heavily influenced by the crispy SR500 rupee notes.
During the campaign President Michel, said that if SPPF is returned with a majority he would propose a law that would withdraw stipends of members who boycott the Assembly. Such a law could have been passed by the majority enjoyed by the SPPF in the defunct assembly. Now that SPPF could not increase its majority it remains to be seen if a similar law will be proposed. Any move by the SPPF now to propose such a law would turn them into objects of ridicule.
In any event, according to arguments brought in front of the Constitutional Court last week by the leader of the Democratic Party, the Constitution already provides for sanctions against a member who is absent from the Assembly without the permission of the Speaker. Lawyers for the DP leader, Paul Chow, who brought the Constitutional case, argued that the right to boycott the proceedings is a legitimate right of protest and is part of the mandate of the member, who is free to make such a political judgement from time to time. The electorate alone can be the judge of the efficacy of its representation, and their ultimate sanction is at the ballot box at an election. This was visibly demonstrated by the SPPF itself not endorsing the candidatures of numerous outgoing SPPF MNAs, Chow remarked.
In the case before the Constitutional Court, Chow had challenged the reasons which President Michel gave in his State of the Nation message to dissolve the Assembly as “not tantamount to national interest”, which the Constitution stipulated it must. Lawyers for the DP leader argued that the reasons given by the President to dissolve the Assembly are subject to challenge in the courts for their reasonableness, a precedent established by the Seychelles Court of Appeals in an earlier ruling.
National interest referred to in the Constitution, the lawyers argued, concerns the issue of inability of the President, as the Executive head of the government, to govern effectively because of a hostile legislature. Since the Legislature contained a majority of members of the President’s party and they have never been hostile to the President there was no national interest issue to justify the dissolution.
But the Constitutional Court, comprising a panel of three Supreme Court judges – after a hearing lasting well past 6 pm, ruled that not only did they consider Chow’s arguments wrong, but that neither he nor his party had sufficient interest in the subject matter, to raise it in the courts - the celebrated locus standi issue which lawyers thought that an earlier Court of Appeals ruling had laid to rest.
Chow said he would be appealing the ruling to the Court of Appeals, which is due to meet in August. He said that the result of the election will support his thesis that President Michel’s reasons for dissolving the Assembly did not tantamount to “national interest”. President Michel and his party, Chow said, have cried wolf just once too often.
This week it is reported that President Rene – who is the leader of the SPPF, remonstrated everyone at a meeting of the Central Committee of the party at Maison du Peuple on Monday. Rene is said to have poured private scorn on the decision by Michel to lead a motorcade around the island of Mahe in celebration of the result, since the party had not won the battle for public opinion despite spending in excess of SR 10 million.