Mauritius: Prime Minister to be picked by dirty money and corruption in November electionsF

Mauritians elect 62 members of the National Assembly, who are selected from 21 multi-member constituencies. All electorates have three representatives, except for Rodrigues, which has two. Candidates for the National Assembly are required to be at least 18 years old, citizens of the Commonwealth of Nations, reside in the constituency they contest for at least two years, and be proficient enough in English to participate in parliamentary proceedings. Contestants also require a nomination from at least six electors in their constituency and a deposit to be paid, which is refunded if they receive no less than 10% of the vote. Unless the prime minister advises the president to dissolve the National Assembly early, members serve a five-year term. Casual vacancies for the directly elected seats are filled through .

Since Mauritius became a republic in 1992, the nation has held indirect elections for the presidency and vice-presidency. Both offices are elected separately by members of the National Assembly, with each officeholder serving a five-year term. Candidates for these posts must secure a majority of votes from legislators to be elected. The president is of two terms, while the vice-president is eligible to seek re-election indefinitely. Eligible candidates for both posts must be Mauritian citizens, at least 40 years old and have resided in the country for at least five years before the election.

Mauritians residing in the five urban municipalities elect members of the municipal councils. Voters in other parts of the country, except Rodrigues, elect members of their respective village councils. Since 2012, groups and alliances fielding more than two candidates in a municipality or village have been required to ensure that two-thirds of their contestant lineup were not of the same gender. If a group does not comply with the gender quota, its candidates, while still allowed to contest the elections, can only run as independents. All local election dates are determined by the president on the advice of the prime minister. Both village and municipal councillors serve a six-year term, unless the president calls snap elections or approves the extension of the council terms.

Rodrigues was granted autonomy in 2001 and held its first regional assembly elections the following year. Elections to the assembly are conducted via the electoral system. Since 2017, the assembly has had 17 members; 12 are elected from six two-seat constituencies, known as local regions, through the plurality-bloc system. Five members are elected from an island-wide constituency through proportional representation from the lists of parties that reach the 10% threshold. These seats are allocated to parties based on their share of candidates elected from the local regions. Rodriguan electors are thus allocated three votes. Parties that do not field contestants in local regions are ineligible for an island-wide seat. Eligible candidates must be Mauritian citizens, have resided in Rodrigues for at least six months before the nomination date, and be proficient enough in English and French to participate in assembly proceedings. The president of the republic sets the dates for the regional assembly election, and representatives serve five-year terms. Assembly members indirectly elect a chief commissioner, Rodrigues' executive, from among themselves every five years.

Universal suffrage was granted in 1959, permitting all Mauritians to vote regardless of ethnicity or class. Eligible voters are required to be citizens of the Commonwealth, at least 18 years old and have resided in Mauritius for a least two years. Public servants enrolled in constituencies in Rodrigues or but stationed in Mauritius or vice versa can apply to . Voting is not compulsory.

The first elections held in Mauritius were in for the Legislative Council under British colonial rule. The polls were organised to cater to the demands of the Franco-Mauritian minority for political representation in the colony. Suffrage was limited to men who possessed 300 of immovable property or movable property worth ₨3,000, a monthly salary of ₨50, those paying rent of ₨25 a month or paying a licence duty of at least ₨200 a year. People married to eligible voters, or the oldest son of a qualifying widow, were also entitled to cast a ballot. As such, only around one per cent of the population was eligible to vote, which included most Franco-Mauritians, while less than one per cent of the majority Indo-Mauritian community, mostly business owners, were enfranchised. Although voting remained restricted to propertied classes in the following decades, limited representation on the council was later extended to Creoles, Hindus and Muslims. Voting was extended in 1948 to all individuals who could pass a basic literacy test in any language spoken in Mauritius. Universal suffrage took effect in 1959, removing the literacy requirement.

The British colonial administration held two commissions to determine an electoral system for an independent Mauritius. The first, which occurred in 1958, proposed establishing 40 single-member constituencies using the first-past-the-post voting system. This recommendation was supported by then Chief Minister 's , which primarily had supporters from the Hindu majority by that time. The Labour Party argued that (PR) would result in the establishment of ethnically centred parties and increase communal tensions, and also claimed that PR was too complex for the predominantly illiterate population to understand. On the other hand, Parti Mauricien and other parties comprising minority communities believed that PR would foster inter-communal harmony and guarantee minority representation. A constitutional conference in 1965 replaced the single-member constituencies with 20 multi-member ones to prevent a disproportionate representation of Hindu lawmakers. The 1966 commission upheld the changes, with the aim of incentivising parties to appeal to multiple communities. An additional constituency was added for Rodrigues. The electoral boundaries were drawn in proportion to each community's population percentage. As such, 13 constituencies had a majority Hindu electorate; six had voters primarily from the general population, while Muslims formed a majority in only one constituency. These boundaries have been in place ever since.

Since independence in 1968, Mauritius has held free and fair elections. All parliamentary polls have seen numerous parties secure representation. Electoral alliances between parties have been widely viewed as a crucial feature of securing victory in post-independence parliamentary elections. As such, governments formed since independence have been coalitions, all of which have been established before elections, except in , when an alliance was not determined until after the poll. In part due to the constituency boundaries, a Hindu-dominant party has always won the most seats, aside from in the . These parties, however, have frequently relied on smaller non-Hindu parties to secure a majority.

Due to the electoral system, the seat share of parties and alliances has often been disproportionate to the number of votes received. The 1982, , and parliamentary elections saw an opposition alliance defeat a governing coalition and win all mainland seats. The resulting absence of an opposition presence in the aftermath has sparked concerns of a lack of checks and balances on the successive governments. In the , the governing Alliance Morisien won re-election, securing 63% of the seats, despite receiving only 37% of the popular vote.

While electoral reform has widespread support, most parties have different preferences on a system to replace the status quo and have been unable to reach a consensus. Since 2002, there have numerous efforts to change the electoral system. In 2014, the Labour-led government of Prime Minister proposed changes to the electoral system at the national level. The government sought to address disproportionalities resulting from the plurality system in parliamentary elections by replacing BLS with 16 additional proportional list tier members. These seats would be allocated based on the votes received by unsuccessful candidates, while the plurality bloc seats would remain. This proposal was effectively a compromise between the , which the then opposition (MSM) supported, and the , which the (MMM) preferred. The Labour government also sought to transfer executive power to the president and introduce direct elections for the post. During the , the MSM-led , which opposed the reforms, defeated the Labour-MMM coalition in an upset, resulting in the proposal's demise. The Alliance Lepep government sought to introduce a mixed-member proportional system, however, it was voted down by parliament in 2018. Labour and the MMM returned to government in 2024 under , and again proposed reforms to the electoral system.