Institute of Commonwealth Studies

Mauritius was a British colony from its capture from the French 1810 until its independence in 1968, but it maintained both its Napoleonic institutions and its Franco-Mauritian business elite. Other ethnic groups on the island include a Creole population descended from the French plantation owners and their slaves and both Muslim and Hindu Indo-Mauritians who arrived as indentured labourers from 1835 after the abolition of slavery. Since the country's first elections in 1947 Hindu-led parties have monopolised power, with the Parti travailliste (Mauritius) ruling the country until 1982 before being supplanted by an alliance of the Mouvement militant mauricien (MMM) and the Mouvement socialiste mauricien (MSM).