Senate of Maurits

The Senate is the legislative body of Maurits and directly elected using Mixed-member proportional representation, half the seats are representing different cantons of the Mauritsian Republic.

There can be up to 100 Senators elected at one time, the election commissions decides how many seats will be able to be elected each elections.

Functions
The Senate is the main legislative body of Maurits, where discussion of proposed legislation and review of the actions of the cabinet takes place. Both the Cabinet and the Senate itself have the right to propose legislation; the Senate discusses it and, if adopted by a majority, sends it on to the President. Review of the actions of the cabinet takes the form of formal interrogations, which may result in motions urging the cabinet to take, or refrain from, certain actions. The Prime Minister may not be a member of both the Senate and the cabinet, except in a caretaker government that has not yet been succeeded when a new house is sown in.

The Senate is also responsible for the affirmation of new Judges on the Constitutional Council.

Elections
The normal term of the Senate is one month. Elections are called when the government loses a Senates confidence, the governing coalition breaks down, the term of the Senate expires, or when no governing coalition can be formed.

Parties
Anybody eligible to vote in Maurits also has the right to establish a political party and contest elections for the senate. Parties wanting to take part must register 2 hours before the elections happen supplying a national list of at most 100 candidates.

Voting
Each voter gets a party vote, where they choose a political party, and an electorate vote, where they vote for a candidate in their electorate. The party vote determines the proportion of seats assigned to each party in Senate. Each elected candidate gets a seat, and the remaining seats are filled by the party from its party list.

For example:

A party wins 30% of the party vote. Therefore, it will get 30% of the 100 seats in Parliament (30 seats). The party won 20 electorates through the electorate vote. Therefore, 20 of the 30 seats will be taken by the Senators that won their electorate, and 10 seats will be left over for the party to fill from their list of politicians.