The Prime Minister of Mauritius is the head of government of the Republic. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the President, to Parliament, to their political party and ultimately to the electorate. The current Prime Minister, Navin Ramgoolam, leader of the Mauritius Labour Party, was appointed on 5 May 2005 following the victory of his alliance in the 2005 general elections.
The position of Prime Minister is created under Section 58 Part 1 of the constitution alongside with the office of Deputy Prime Minister. Before 1968, the position was equivalent to the role of the Chief Minister. However, executive powers remained in the hands of the Governor, representative of the Monarch.
The President became head of state in March 1992 after the country became a Republic. Although the President holds prerogative powers (powers including summoning, prorogation and dissolution of parliament including appointment of the Prime Minister and Cabinet), it is the prime minister who has the constitutional duty to advise him/her when to exercise the prerogatives. The prime minister therefore decide when the President should use the prerogatives.
By the Westminster system of government the Prime Minister had become "primus inter pares" or the first among equals in the Cabinet and the head of government in Mauritius. The political position of Prime Minister is maintained as being the leader of the party having majority seats in the National Assembly (the only elected house of parliament of Mauritius).
The Prime Minister presides over the Cabinet of Ministers which advises the President of the Republic and is collectively responsible to the National Assembly for any advice given and for all action done by or under the authority of any Minister in the execution of his office. The prime minister is appointed by the president. He or she holds the second most senior position in the country, second only to the president.
The person who holds the record for longest time spent as prime minister is Anerood Jugnauth who was prime minister for sixteen years in four terms. The prime minister is the highest power of the state. The Ministry of Defense & Home Affairs is under aegis of the Prime Minister office since 2004.
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“If one had to worry about one’s actions in respect of other people’s ideas, one might as well be buried alive in an antheap or married to an ambitious violinist. Whether that man is the prime minister, modifying his opinions to catch votes, or a bourgeois in terror lest some harmless act should be misunderstood and outrage some petty convention, that man is an inferior man and I do not want to have anything to do with him any more than I want to eat canned salmon.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)
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—Wilma Rudolph (1940–1994)
“Just let him be minister if that’s what he desires, but without his brother and his brother-in-law.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)