[Blog] Breath has turned into apnea

When this government was elected a year ago, the country began to breathe again. After years of a suffocating political climate marked by fear, divisions, and identity confinement, the victory of the Alliance of Change brought a breath of hope.

From abroad, many of us, Mauritians in the diaspora, felt this fresh breeze. We saw the promise of a fairer, more transparent, and more humane country. A year later, that breath has turned into apnea, and the impatience is palpable.

The air of renewal cannot be limited to a change in tone; it must lead to a change in direction.

Among the most crucial promises were a genuine electoral reform with at least one-third of women on the lists, a transparent law on political party financing, an anti-defection law, and a Freedom of Information Act. This reform embodies the idea of breaking away more than any other, as all the downfalls stem from a rigid, communal, and disconnected electoral system.

In September, the government officially opened this project. It is a step in the right direction. However, Mauritian history has taught us to be cautious: too often, these reforms begin as debates and fade into endless discussions with no conclusion.

I currently live in the UK and have the right to vote here, even though I haven’t lived here for a year. Yet, I was unable to vote in my own country’s elections. This paradox is experienced by many Mauritians in the diaspora: we have the right to exist civically elsewhere but not at home.

This is a form of imposed silence. If electoral reform truly wants to mark a break, it must also address the voting rights of Mauritians abroad.

Another shadow looms: that of identity retreat. One year later, communal rhetoric sometimes resurfaces. True reform will not only be electoral or economic; it will be cultural. Democratic breathing cannot coexist with identity rigidity.

Economic justice is another essential pillar. Prices are rising faster than wages. In households, it is not politics that is primarily discussed, but prices. Daily life has become an impossible equation. The country may breathe politically, but economically, it is lacking air. Trust cannot be built on an empty stomach.

There is also another alarming reality: youth suicides are on the rise. Cyberbullying, sextortion, and online violence are ruining lives without adequate institutional response. Femicide continues to mourn the island, and drugs are ravaging entire neighborhoods.

These are not mere news items but a social and moral fracture. When women are no longer safe, when youth are trapped between despair and dependency, the issue is no longer just political: it is human. This new government must heed these loud signals and respond vigorously.

The 2025-26 Budget announces the creation of a Diaspora and Global Advisory Council under the Prime Minister’s Office, intended to encourage the participation of Mauritians abroad in the nation's development. For the diaspora, the era of perpetual "Councils" has passed. What we now expect are concrete mechanisms: participation, consultation, and real integration into the national strategy. The diaspora seeks to participate, to advise, to build.

For loving Mauritius from afar also means wanting to see it thrive. The country is not short on promises; it lacks collective breath. Now is the time to turn words into actions, reforms into realities, and hope into commitment. Mauritian democracy does not need new slogans; it needs new courage.

My departure…

I left Mauritius, driven by a political climate that had become too heavy, laden with inequalities, discrimination, and suffocating stagnation. In a system where success still too often depends on the name you carry, the background you come from, or the network you belong to—along with your ethnicity—merit struggles to find its place. The lack of real opportunities has created a chasm between who we could be and what the country allowed us to become.

For me, leaving was not a rejection but an act of intellectual and moral survival. I needed to breathe elsewhere to regain the clarity of mind necessary to love Mauritius without losing myself in it. And I fully intend to return in a few years.

Djemmilah Mourade-Peerbux