LAST WEEK, independent candidate for the forthcoming presidential elections, Ralph Volcère, announced Bernard
Port-louis as his running mate. In a press conference, the duo explained the reasoning behind the decision as Port
Louis is theleader of the One Seychelles political party. During the legislative elections of 2020, Volcère stood in
the Roche Caiman district under the One Seychelles banner. With the joining of forces, One Seychelles will not be
presenting candidates for the presidency, but will focus instead on the legislative elections.
One Seychelles had remained relevant in the Seychelles political scenery over the past 5 years, as its results in the
2020 elections were such that it secured some funding from the Electoral Commission as per the law. Meanwhile,
other than the United Seychelles party, Volcère has possibly been the opposition candidate who has been the most
active throughout the LDS mandate. He has remained very present in every aspect, relentlessly pushing the public's
agenda in his newspaper and putting action where his words are by setting up the Seychelles Workers' Union and
actively defending the rights of workers, be they locals or expatriates.
As of this week, SIN invites you to get to know more about your candidate, Ralph Volcère.
Brief bio
Already into his mid-sixties, Volcère exudes boundless energy more commonly found in men half his age. A few
weeks ago, he took time out to talk to this newspaper about what drives him.
Ralph Gerald Maxime Volcère was born in Mont Fleuri on the 25th April 1960. He spent his early childhood at
Corgat Estate, and then his family moved to Anse Aux Pins. As a young man, he got involved in Seychelles
politics, and in 1982, he took political asylum in England for eleven years before returning to Seychelles in 1993,
when the late President Albert Rene announced the country's return to multiparty politics.
Volcère immediately immersed himself right back into Seychelles politics, and in the legislative elections of
1993, he stood as a candidate in the Pointe Larue constituency and despite failing, he soldiered on and in 1998 he
stood in the Anse Aux Pins constituency, again without much success.
In 1998, Volcère returned to England, where he studied law at the Thames Valley University in West London,
UK for three years, before coming back to Seychelles. In 2001 and 2002, he participated in the National Assembly
elections under the banner of the democratic party. He eventually took over the leadership of the Democratic Party
(DP) and later changed its name to the New Democratic Party. From the NDP, Volcère and team further changed the
party's name to the Seychelles United Party SUP and it was under this banner thathe took part in the 2011 elections.
At the time, Volcère was also the editor of the Seychelles Weekly newspaper from 2005 to 2014. When he
stepped down as the leader of the SUP, he also rescinded his post as editor of the Seychelles Weekly, as it was the
party's mouthpiece. He decided to part ways with SUP when the party opted for an alliance with the Seychelles
National Party, and he was not in favour of this.
That was when Ralph Volcère decided to start his newspaper, The Seychelles Independent Newspaper, of which
he is the proprietor, publisher and editor. He started this venture in 2014, and to date, the newspaper is still breaking
ground in its reporting of matters that other media houses shy away from.
SIN
Why have you decided to present yourself as a presidential candidate for these general elections?
RV
I feel that it is important that the Seychellois voters have a wider choice of candidates for this most important post in
our country. My approach is simple; I stand on the mantra of national unity, and I believe that the way politics are
evolving right now here, that polarised division which has existed for some four decades, is still there. I find it
important that we bring our people together, no matter what each one's political or religious beliefs are or no matter
what their origins are. We are a small population, and as such, we are limited in the number of skills and talents we
have. Therefore, we cannot afford to be pulling in different directions. We need to at least be able to work alongside
each other, even if we have different political beliefs.
We have to learn to put our political differences aside and come together as one nation under the same flag. We
have many, many issues which are pressing. We do not need to start blaming one another, but rather come together
to address these matters. We have an overwhelming drug problem.
This problem does not only impact on our youths, but also our workforce and this is why we are seeing so many
expatriates coming here to work and drugs abuse is one of the reasons why we are short on manpower because many
are addicted or who are on methadone and who as a result are unable to be productive in the way they should be.
There is also the educational aspect, which we need to review closely and health amongst others, which are
priority areas needing attention.
And as for me, my way to address these matters as a politician, I do not know everything. In fact, a politician's
technical and specialised knowledge is very limited. We need to rope in the professionals, who are well qualified in
their respective domains and sit down with them and see how best to resolve problems.
Whenever politicians decide to solve the problem themselves, we never get a solution which addresses the root
cause of the problem.
SIN
Tell us more about those areas you have identified as needing attention.
RV
Housing is a big problem. We have so many people who are still waitlisted even after two or three decades, and this
is one area which we have to focus on. But I want to emphasise that if we cannot come together as a nation, it will
be very, very difficult for us to solve our issues. We have a very big problem with our social services, which we
need to sit together and see how best we can address it.
We also have a big money problem, as we all know, there is a budget which is approved every year and that
budget and to finance that budget, the government has to impose upon the workers. It is them who carry this burden.
We, as politicians we need to find ways to generate revenue and remove this burden from the backs of the
ordinary man on the street. One area on which I am focusing is the revenue generated by the tourism industry. We
call this tourism earnings.
Why is it, and no one can argue this fact, that around 50% of our tourism earnings remain outside the country? It
does not come into our country at all, and this affects us in two ways.
Firstly, taxes- we do not collect any tax on that money because it does not come into the country for the revenue
commission to be able to tax it, so we lose VAT on it. Secondly, we lose that element of foreign exchange, which
should come into our banking system, so that when we have a healthy flow of foreign exchange coming into our
system, this will help our rupee to appreciate.
That's one of the problems which I feel should have been tackled by now, but I find that it is being overlooked,
despite being a very important means to help the country balance the budget while at the same time relieving the
burden of taxation on the population in general.
Then there is the question of salary- workers' wages are amongst the most important matters, and many, many
workers in the Seychelles are not getting paid enough to make their families get by. We call this a living wage, and
there are two ways of improving this. One way would be to increase the salary of workers, but that brings its
repercussions as it inevitably leads to higher prices and, as such, d
efeats its purpose. If we can make it so that the
worker can buy more with the salary that he earns, that would be the best solution. We call this improving the
purchasing power of the people!
They would see that with the same earnings, they can buy more and, as such, live better lives. How to do this?
There are different approaches to this. One way would be to appreciate the value of the rupee against other
currencies, and when we do this, we will need fewer rupees for importation. Right now, a dollar is above fourteen
rupees. If we could bring down. That is, when we buy one dollar, we need fewer rupees, and we would be able to do
this if all the money which our tourism industry generates were to come into the country. Another way through
which we could do this is that we have a lot of big companies, especially parastatals such as IDC, Air Seychelles and
a few others. They are the big players, and if they keep their forex in our banking system, it would help. I have asked
this question once, and the reply was that; 'We had a problem with forex,” but that problem no longer exists. They
should bring the money here. I am not saying that they should bring all of the money here, but at least bring most of
it, so that it can impact not only the country's economy but also on each individual in the country.
We are all affected by this, but for some other reason, those who are in power have not addressed this situation,
and as for me, I give you my guarantee that this is one area which I will focus on, to ensure that the wealth of the
Seychelles benefits all of its children.
Meet us next week for more insight into your Presidential Candidate, Ralph Volcère
