Lalit (Mauritius)

Struggle
Lalit
Founded1981
Split fromMauritian Militant Movement
Headquarters153 Main Road, Grand River North West
IdeologySocialism
Marxism
Environmentalism
Anti-capitalism
Internationalism
Feminism
Political positionLeft-wing
Website
http://www.lalitmauritius.org/

Lalit is a left-wing political party in the Republic of Mauritius. It is opposed to private or any other undemocratic control of government functions. According to its website, the party was created as a "free-expression monthly magazine" named "Lalit de Klas" (English: "Class Struggle") in 1976.[1] "Lalit" means "struggle" in Mauritian Creole. The party, which started as a tendency inside the Mauritian Militant Movement, split from it in 1981, when the MMM announced that it was embarking on a policy of "New Social Consensus", seen by Lalit as a policy of collaboration with the capital.[2]

Lalit desires what it calls "an alternative political economy",[1] and works towards care for the environment, against repression and torture, and towards women's liberation. Lalit strongly opposes communalism and the use of ethnoreligious labels for official purposes. Its candidates in the 2005 National Assembly elections each drew the legally compulsory classification he or she would use from a hat, regardless of candidate's actual supposed "ethnicity" or religion. The party failed to win seats in the Assembly.

The party opposes the presence of Anglo-American forces on the atoll of Diego Garcia[1] which forms part of the Republic of Mauritius.

References

  1. ^ a b c Lalit website, "About", Retrieved March 2, 2012.
  2. ^ Republic of Mauritius:The Experience of Resistance to Neo-Liberalism Archived 2004-09-09 at the Wayback Machine Human Rights Programme of the Europe-Third World Centre (CETIM), 2000