Author: Robin

Comment: Will the real DRP please stand up?

The Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), the main opposition party of Maldives held their last congress in February, 2010. During this congress there were two main lines of thought regarding electing their presidential candidate.

One group, led by Umar Naseer, proposed the presidential candidate should be elected through a party primary. The other group, led by the DRP council, proposed that such a primary was unnecessary and the leader of the party will be the party’s presidential candidate.

After much heated debate and talks during party meetings and local television, the issue was to be decided by the members of the party, at their upcoming congress. A vote was taken and more than 95 per cent of the attendees of the DRP congress voted in favour of the proposal made by the DRP council to make the elected leader of the party their presidential candidate.

The issue was solved. The presidential candidate of DRP would be its leader. This means Thasmeen will be the candidate from the DRP, for the 2013 presidential elections.

For a while it at least appeared to me, as an outside observer, that the debates were forgotten and everyone was working together. But as time passed, DRP started to show hints of a divide. Before long, the divide deepened and today DRP is split into two unequal parts. There is the main DRP under its leadership, and there is its “Z faction” as they now call themselves.

Z faction seems to be functioning under the leadership of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the former president of the Maldives. The letter Z in the name of this faction stands for Zaeem, an affectionate reference made to Gayyoom. Zaeem is an Arabic word, translated as ‘the honorary leader’. This honorary position was awarded by the DRP leadership to Gayyoom, who played a major role in founding DRP.

Gayyoom was thought to have resigned from politics for he announced his resignation in January 2010. So people expected him to spend his time away from the local political scenario. But if he did resign at that time, he seems to have re-entered politics and is now seen as an active member of the Z faction of DRP. Some even associate him as the reason why the Z faction was born.

Z faction, as the name indicates, is a faction of DRP. But on Saturday, after returning back to Male’ from a recent trip to India, Gayyoom announced that the Z faction of DRP is “the real DRP.”

My question is can this even be a legitimate faction? I think as long as they call it a faction of DRP, it cannot be legitimate before the DRP approves of its legitimacy. I don’t think the DRP will approve of its legitimacy because no matter what the supporters of Gayoom would like to call it, Z faction is formed of a rebellious group of DRP members.

The main leadership of DRP considers the Z faction as DRP members who do not accept decisions made by the party’s councils and committees. This is except for one person – Umar Naseer, whose name has been struck off the DRP membership register. Even though Umar Naseer and others who belong to the Z faction think Umar is still a deputy leader of DRP, DRP leadership considers him one of their ex-deputy leaders.

It is also worth noting here that most relatives of Gayyoom that I have seen on televised meetings of DRP are now seen in the frontline of the meetings held by the Z faction. So the Z faction is seen mainly as Gayoom, his relatives and supporters.

Representatives of a few minor political parties can be seen in the meetings held in the name of the Z faction of DRP. Many such meetings are solely or partially supported by the People’s Alliance (PA). PA’s leader, Yameen can be seen playing an active role in most of these meetings. Because of this and based on the comments made to local newspapers, until very recently, I was under the impression that Z faction is trying to promote Yameen as their presidential candidate. Like probably everyone else, I too was speculating. But now, I am thinking maybe I was wrong. I am now speculating that Z faction wants to bring Gayoom back as the president of this country.

Z faction has their own leadership which they selected only last week. I am not aware of how they chose their leadership. I only know that they announced the names of their leaders and council members. All of Gayyoom’s children hold posts in this newly announced leadership. This is not surprising to many of us because it is also widely speculated that Gayoom wants to create a dynasty. This will not be easy to achieve in the views of many political analysts.

Last Thursday night, Z faction held a meeting at the Artificial Beach. This was to publicly announce their leadership, amongst other things. In this meeting they tell us that Z faction holds the thinking of Gayoom. They also tell us that it is a democratic organisation. I cannot understand how it can be both. From what I understood, Z faction revolves around Gayyoom. How can an organisation that revolves around someone be democratic? If they love democracy so much, why did they split from the main DRP in the first place?

According to what they said, recently some of the council members of Z faction have even met foreign diplomats in Colombo, as the leading opposition party of the Maldives. They even discussed issues that are of national interest. I wonder what the foreign diplomats will think of this group. I also wonder whether they presented themselves as those belonging to a faction of DRP. If the members of Z faction met the diplomats, as members of DRP, then yes, they are indeed the leading opposition party. If they met as members of Z faction, I disagree.

Z faction is not a registered political party. Z faction is not DRP. Yet the members of this faction claim they are the “real DRP.” If they are the real DRP, why call it Z faction? Why not just DRP? For me, it appears that the Z faction is trying to highjack DRP and then bring a coup to it.

Even though the DRP congress decided that their presidential candidate will be their leader, in the minds of those belonging to Z faction, this issue has not been solved. Z faction does not want Thasmeen to be the presidential candidate from DRP. They want their favourite person to be the DRP presidential candidate. And because, under existing party regulations, this will not be possible, they have to search for an alternative means to do this. The result is the birth of Z faction.

Legitimate or not, the creation of Z faction has hit DRP hard. The biggest opposition party has not disintegrated but is weakened. All because one man wants to fulfil his dreams?

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Comment: United we stand, divided we fall

After reading the article on Minivan News titled “DRP celebrates ‘beginning of the end’ for government” I can only say I hope MDP takes this as a wake up call.

We saw Maldivians uniting to bring down Gayyoom’s regime. Now it looks like Maldivians are uniting to bring down President Nasheed’s regime.

Surely, something must be seriously wrong in how the country is governed. Otherwise why would everyone unite to bring down a government for whose success in the presidential elections they so passionately worked?

Gayyoom could not digest why he failed when he failed. I am not sure whether he has still recovered from that blow. And from what I am hearing from people like Reeko Moosa, it looks like MDP is also in an euphoric state from which a defeat is seen as what is next to impossible, if not as impossible.

The Nasheed-Waheed team is a dream team. Maldivians saw this.

Anyone who has any doubts about this will need to think of what happened in the parliamentary elections when the dream team decided to split and go on their own. The result was Nasheed could not win majority and Waheed could not win a single seat. But together, they formed a team that won the blessings of almost all the other presidential contestants and as a result the majority votes in the presidential elections.

If Nasheed made someone else his VP, will the others back him? Or will he even get enough votes to go for a second round? Only God knows. But because the Nasheed-Waheed team won the presidential elections, and is serving us today as our leaders, it is only fair to say they are a dream team.

From the news of Waheed’s dissatisfaction we have been hearing lately, it is obvious that the dream team no longer works as a team.

According to an article on Haveeru, Reeko Moosa says, the allegation that the president is running the country as per his and Mariya’s advice is true. Form what he says, I understand that it should only be expected. Moosa says the president MUST govern the country according to the guidelines formed by the MDP parliamentary group and MDP members.

This to me is where things are going terribly wrong.

This is not an MDP government. We have a coalition; by which I mean we have a government that SHOULD run not as an MDP government but as a coalition.

I want this government not just to work, but to do it successfully. Otherwise this could be seen as such a mockery of Maldivian politics.

In my mind, President Nasheed rightly deserves the post. After all, he fought for it; he struggled and suffered as a result. But his vision for the people kept him strong. His pledges impressed me and I don’t think they are impossible things to do. And it would be so wrong to say he is not trying to fulfill his pledges. Then why are we hearing so much of criticism of his government?

I have a feeling he is receiving all the bad rap because he is influenced too much by his own party and also by some of the international agencies who supported his cause. This obviously is not helping. Otherwise there should not be even a moment where the government appears to be on the brink of a collapse.

MDP’s euphoric state will perhaps make them blind to the government being at the “beginning of the end.” They will probably not agree with Umar Naseer in this. But, from all we are hearing, the government’s end seems to be not at the horizon, but much closer than that. This to me is a pathetic state of affairs.

The only solution for the government is, to seek vide ranging advice and opinions that will open all lines of thinking. The ‘drawback’ of this is that such consultations will not allow everything to be done the way MDP wants. Even so, I am sure no one in the coalition will act as a hindrance in implementing the MDP manifesto. And this is not at all a drawback considering that this will keep the government standing.

United we stand, divided we fall.

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