Mauritius History

It is believed that Arab geographers and navigators already knew of its existence in medieval times. The Portuguese first arrived in Mauritius with Domingos Fernández in 1512 and gave the island the name of Cerné. In 1598 the Dutch took possession of it and renamed it Mauritius, in honor of Prince Maurice of Nassau, and remained there until 1710. In 1715 the island was occupied by the French who called it Île de France and administered it through the Company of the Indies until 1767, when it passed under the direct administration of France to which it remained until 1810 when Great Britain, to prevent a possible attack on India, conquered it with an expeditionary force.

With the Treaty of Paris of 1814, Mauritius was definitively attributed to Great Britain. In 1825 the first Legislative Council was established and in 1833 the abolition of slavery was decreed. In 1936 the trade union movement began to organize itself into the Mauritian Labor Party (PLM) whose leader became the doctor Seewoosagur Ramgoolam. In 1957 a new structure of government took shape: the Constitution was created, the Legislative Council had an elective majority and in 1958 universal suffrage was introduced. In the first elections, which were held by universal suffrage, the PLM won the majority of votes and Ramgoolan was elected prime minister. However, the antagonism between the Indian and Creole ethnic groups disturbed the political framework. On March 12, 1964 Mauritius gained internal autonomy and, after the Constitutional Conference in London in 1965 and the general elections of 1967, it gained independence on March 12, 1968 by joining the Commonwealth. Visit ask4beauty for Mauritius the pearl of the Indian ocean.

At the time of independence there was a strong two-party system: on the one hand the PLM, on the other the Social Democratic Party of Mauritius (PSDM); with the elections the majority went to the Labor party and Ramgoolam was elected prime minister. A change of government took place in 1982 when Labor, already weakened by the 1976 votes, lost the direction of the government and the success of the left-wing coalition led by the Mauritian Militant Movement (MMM), born in the 1970s, of Paul Bérenger. Already the following year, however (1983), Bérenger, following a government crisis, was forced to resign: in this period new political groups were born including the Socialist Movement of Mauritius (MSM): power passed to Aneerood Jugnauth (Mauritian Militant Movement, MMM). After a period of internal tensions, a constitutional amendment was approved by which Mauritius became a Republic within the Commonwealth (March 1992); the presidency temporarily assumed by the last governor general, V. Ringadoo, then passed on 30 June 1992 to Cassam Uteem, of the WMM. Due to the common desire to create a new institutional set-up in Mauritius, the two major parties (MSM and MMM) decided to give life to a governing coalition, which although challenged also by a part of the MSM, still managed to overcome the obstacle of the elections policies of 1991. This allowed the two leaders, Jugnauth and Bérenger, respectively Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, to proceed swiftly on the path of the constitutional changes approved in December 1991. However, the relationship between the two parties was soon destined to deteriorate and in August 1993 Jugnauth temporarily left the scene: this represented a general weakening of the executive, and caused a collapse of Jugnauth’s party which heavily lost the 1995 elections. Having won almost all the seats, the WMM and the Labor Party formed a new ruling coalition chaired by Labor Navin Ramgoolam. The socialists and Jugnauth, however, already returned to the government with the 2000 elections which saw the victory of the MSM. In 2003 Jugnauth sold theMSM party leadership to his son Prauind and was elected president. In 2005 Rangoolam, after a brief period in which the government was led by Bérenger and his coalition, was given the post of prime minister. In 2008 the National Assembly reconfirmed the presidential office in Jugnauth, while in 2010 the coalition led by Prime Minister Rangoolam won the legislative elections.