The Parliament
The Constitution of Mauritius provides for the Parliament of Mauritius to
consist of the President and the National Assembly. The Parliament of
Mauritius is modelled after the Westminster system of parliamentary
democracy, where Members of Parliament are voted in at regular general
elections, on the basis of a first past the post system.
The National Assembly
The Assembly is made up of 70 Members of whom 62 are directly
elected in 21 constituencies. The island of Mauritius is divided
into 20 constituencies returning 3 members each and that of
Rodrigues is a single constituency returning 2 members. After a
general election, the Electoral Supervisory Commission may nominate
up to a maximum of 8 additional members in accordance with section 5
of the First Schedule of the Constitution with a view to correct any
imbalance in community representation in Parliament. This system of
nominating members is commonly called the best loser system.
The political party or party alliance which wins the majority of
seats in Parliament forms the government and its leader usually
becomes the Prime Minister. It is the Prime Minister who selects the
members of the composition of the Cabinet from elected members of
the Assembly, except for the Attorney General who may not be an
elected member of the Assembly The political party or alliance which
has the second largest majority forms the Official Opposition and
it's leader is normally nominated by the President of the Republic
as the Leader of the Opposition. The Assembly elects a Speaker, a
Deputy Speaker and a Deputy Chairman of Committees as one of its
first business.
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