Voting will take place on Sunday in a closely contested election clouded by the wiretapping scandal in Mauritius, touted as one of Africa’s most stable and prosperous democracies.
The parliamentary polls in the Indian Ocean archipelago follow last month’s historic agreement in which Britain ceded sovereignty over the Chagos archipelago to Mauritius after a long-running dispute.
But Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth’s hopes of an easy re-election following the deal were dealt a blow last month when secretly recorded phone calls between politicians, diplomats and journalists began leaking online.
The former CEO of Mauritius Telecom was arrested along with three other suspects in an investigation into a leak published primarily by an account called Missie Moustass on TikTok.
In response to the scandal, authorities on November 1 announced a ban on social media until after the election.
But an uproar from opposition parties and local media forced an embarrassing about-face within 24 hours.
