Blog: A really chequered political career

A barrister, who had pursued legal studies in both France and the UK, back home in 1955, Gaëtan Duval, later Sir (SGD), originally considered himself a leftist. He soon shone conspicuously in the legal field, especially in criminal cases, as well as in public life, both in the towns and across the country.

Yet, SGD did not join the Mauritius Labour Party (MLP), as its top leaders generally, in his opinion, had an inclination for English culture and language. Like his predecessor and mentor Jules Koenig, the towering public man and orator, he had a special attachment to France.

For SGD, the MLP chiefs were a threat to the French language and culture. However, it is reported, he had earlier made a request to join the MLP on the condition that he became its secretary-general. The application was turned down, since leaders of his community within the party were against his admission.

Raymond Rivet, Maurice Lesage and Cyril Leckning, all three Francophiles, approached SGD to join the Parti Mauricien (PM), the former Ralliement Mauricien and now Parti Mauricien Social Démocrate (PMSD). Finally, in 1955, Raoul Rivet, a hardline Francophile as well as a veteran journalist and politician, both regional and national, who was an intimate friend of the Duval family, successfully convinced him to adhere to the nascent PM.

SGD was defeated by the MLP in the 1955 municipal elections in Port-Louis. However, he was returned under the PM’s banner in a by-election in Curepipe, which he had later served as Mayor several times. SGD was first elected legislator in a by-election in Curepipe as a PM candidate in 1960; he had been defeated in this same constituency in the general election of 1959.

Again successful in the 1963 general election, as that of 1967, he was Minister of Housing and Lands in the transitory all-party government (1964). A councillor in the capital for long, after years spent in this capacity in Curepipe, he became the first Lord Mayor of Port-Louis (1971), raised to city status in 1966.

Recommending him to the nation for the general elections of 7 August 1967, Jules Koenig praised the PMSD’s new chief SGD for his intelligence, dynamism and leadership qualities and for working steadfastly and with dedication, as it is now generally agreed. The electoral following of the PMSD soared from 14% in the 1950s to 44% under Duval in 1967.

The PMSD (which bagged 23 seats, against MLP’s 39) opposed Independence, preferring an association with Great Britain. PMSD followers were afraid of nationalisation, Hindu hegemony, or a socio-economic deterioration – all three later proved to be imaginary dangers. Many had even believed that Mauritius could become an overseas territory of India.

After Jules Koenig’s demise in 1968, the mantle of the uncontested leader of the PMSD now fell on “King Creole,” as SGD was popularly known. For the March 1969 municipal elections, there was an electoral entente between the MLP and the PMSD in the five townships. A few prominent members of the PMSD decided not to stand as candidates. On 8 August 1969, Prime Minister Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam (SSR) was made Honorary Freeman of Port-Louis. He was the second Mauritian personality to be awarded such a distinction after Jules Koenig, who was given the honour posthumously a year earlier. In his speech on the occasion, Mayor SGD praised SSR’s statesmanship.

Within a year of the achievement of Independence that he had vigorously opposed, SGD joined SSR and actively collaborated with him in his arduous task of national development, including social cohesion. However, a number of his party parliamentary colleagues and a large chunk of its rank and file fiercely resented this coalition. Had he not joined SSR, he and his party could have been elected in the next general election that should have taken place in 1972, which was postponed and not held before 1976. SGD was Minister for Foreign Affairs in the SSR-led MLP-CAM-PMSD government (1969-1973). He likewise worked by the side of Prime Minister Sir Anerood Jugnauth (SAJ) for the country’s general progress between 1983 and 1988, serving as his deputy in the MSM-MLP-PMSD government (1983-1985). It was thanks to SGD that the Local Government Act 1962 was amended, allowing the use of French in debates and minute-writing, along with English, in the country’s town halls.

SGD passed away in May 1996, when no longer in active public life in which he had spent 40 years. The Legislative Assembly, scheduled to meet on the day of the burial, did not sit in homage to the great leader. Moreover, a state funeral was organised. The number of mourners filing past the corpse of the departed at his bungalow at Grand Gaube and following the cortège to St Jean Cemetery, Quatre Bornes, is considered unequalled in Mauritius.

In the tribute paid to him in Mauritius Times of 3 May 1996, SGD was described as being “not easily grasped and understood. That is because there is only one person like him - i.e. Sir Gaëtan Duval himself.” Before his death, he was fascinated by the Oriental culture, especially Hinduism (Moutou B. in L’Express of 15 October 2008, p.7).

For Prime Minister Dr Navin Ramgoolam, SGD had “a really chequered political career,” who “put the interest of the nation before his own.” The first Leader of Opposition, and later Deputy Prime Minister, he was “an eminent man with qualities of an exceptional degree,” whose “debonair temperament made of him a sociable and popular person.”