Category: Politics

Comment: Salaf or democracy

The appeal of [Islamic NGO] Jamiyatul Salaf on June 12 is interesting for many reasons.

It is the first public statement by an influential organisation in the Maldives condemning democracy and political pluralism as ladini/un-Islamic and fasada/corrupt systems.

To be sure, an Islamist counter-discourse to democratisation is not new in the Maldives. It has its roots in the 2000’s.

Not one, too many

As early as July 2004, following president Gayoom’s June announcement of democratic reforms, Mauroof Hussain, now the Adaalath party’s deputy president, wrote a trenchant article decrying democracy. In the article, Hussain referred to the most influential Islamist ideologue Mawlana Abul A’la Maududi, who railed democracy as conflicting Allah’s hakimiyya/sovereignty.

To be sure, Maududi does not abandon democracy, but gives it an Islamised garb: Maududi’s ‘theodemocracy’ provides restricted popular sovereignty because the legislative function would be limited to ‘interpreting’ Islamic sources.

Sheikh Mohammed Shaheem Ali Saeed built along these lines in a 2006 book on the subject of democracy and Islam. He acknowledges democracy shares a lot of features with what he calls Islami nizam. However, he is emphatic that Islami nizam is not democracy, because the latter contradicts Allah’s hakimiyya.

In a more recent article, reacting to president Nasheed’s remarks that Maldives was a ‘liberal democracy’, Shaheem argued the Maldives constitution now provides an Islami nizam. Shaheem is quite emphatic: we now have an Islamic constitutional system.

It is worth quoting Sheikh Hussain Rasheed Ahmed response to a question on voting:

“If we [reject] voting, then we might as well [reject] all other things that we [Muslims] imitate and copy from non-Muslims. For example, minting or even printing Qur’an, or civil and infrastructure developments like building schools, universities or roads…these are worldly affairs. Those innovations depend on human needs and develop according to their knowledge and views. If a people reject such innovations, they will have to be behind others [in development]. Islam does not wish this from Muslims…the Prophet says: ‘You have better knowledge (of technical skill) in the affairs of the world’”.

Shaheem, Rasheed and Maududi go much further than Jamiyatul Salaf’s leader Sheikh Abdullah bin Muhammad Ibrahim in accommodating democracy. Sheikh Muhammad’s October 2008 article on Daruma magazine rejects democracy in its ‘essence’ as a system of kufr/un-Islamic. While he accepts voting in principle based on Islamic notion of shura, he has a highly restricted view on electing political leaders. Muhammad argued voting rights should be limited to a select few in the society: the ulama, followed by experts and the wise in the society.

Still in a more restrictive view of elections, jurist Abu al-Hasan al-Mawardi reasoned that a caliph himself was entitled to appoint his own successor. So there was no necessity for elections for Mawardi. In our times, influential Islamist Sayyid Qutb would not accept democracy at all because it is a jahiliyya product.

Disagreeing with most of the above views, influential Islamist cleric of our times, Yusuf Qaradawi, argues democracy in its ‘essence’ is fully compatible with Islam. He denounces those who say otherwise as ignorant of Islamic teachings.

Unlike Sheikh Abdullah bin Muhammad Ibrahim of Salaf, for Qaradawi, everyone could, or rather should, vote to choose their leaders. Unlike Maududi and Shaheem, for Qaradawi, popular sovereignty does not conflict with God’s hakimiyya. Again, it is telling that Qaradawi is Qutb’s severest critic in the Islamist camp.

What do we make of all these different views on democracy? I leave it to the readers to make up their minds.

Hypocrisy or politics

But to come back to Jamiyatul Salaf’s Appeal, few observations:

The Appeal is indeed right in highlighting the continued failures of the authorities to address political issues such as corruption and bribery, economic crises, and social issues like violence in all its manifestations.

Islamist utopianism feeds on such failures: Gayoom’s personal dictatorship failed, and now democracy seems to be failing too. So, Islamism says: Islam huwa al-hall/Islam is the solution!

Second, it is interesting that after condemning political pluralism and democracy, Salaf at the same time is prepared to participate in pluralism and democracy: Salaf announces their work to groom an ideal presidential candidate for 2018 elections.

Although the principle of maslaha/public interest is implicit in the Appeal, one wonders why Salaf is not seeking a systemic change, instead of grooming a salih/pious Dhivehi Son (note it’s not a Daughter). Salaf’s anti-political rhetoric in condemning democracy and political pluralism is then highly questionable, if not hypocritical. Narrow politics lurks behind anti-political moralism.

Finally, in the usual binary division of ‘Muslim Maldivians’ and the jahiliyya Other (Christians, Jews and Maldivians educated in the West), Salaf projects a Maldives drifting away from Islam under the corrupting influence of the Other. But there is no any empirical evidence that the Maldivians generally have become less Islamic since democratic openings in 2004.

If anything, the Maldives seems to be undergoing an ‘Islamic awakening’ unprecedented in its entire Islamic history since 1153, thanks to the democratic freedoms. The sheer number of women adopting the veil and men sporting the beard is testament to this.

Lessons

So, the first lesson from our democratic experiment is this: whether or not democracy has delivered on other areas, it has surely freed Islam from the suffocating fist of Gayoom.

The second, more sobering, lesson is: democracy should not be taken for granted.

2018 is not an arbitrarily proposed year. It is only by 2018, Islamists foresee that sufficient numbers could be mobilized through outreach activities.

In the meantime, the ‘Call’ must go on.

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]

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Parliament votes to sign Rome Statute of International Criminal Court

Parliament today voted almost unanimously that the Maldives sign the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the founding treaty of the first permanent international court capable of trying perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

Maldivian MPs voted 61 in favour of signing the statute out of 64 members present.

Chairman of Parliament’s National Security Committee, Abdulla Yameen, presented the committee’s findings stating that signing the treaty would strengthen both criminal justice in the Maldives and the country’s commitment to human rights.

“All the countries that sign the treaty believe that such cases should be looked into with an international jurisdiction,” he said.

Former President’s Member of the Judicial Services Commission (JSC), Aishath Velezinee, said that accepting the jurisdiction of the ICC in the Maldives raised the possibility of taking cases to an international court when a fair trial was impossible in domestic courts.

“We have a unique situation in the Maldives,” said Velezinee, who contends that the former government’s Ministry of Justice was simply reappointed as an ‘independent’ judiciary by the politically-tainted JSC, in an ongoing effort to undermine the country’s democracy.

For this reason, she said, “Crimes [allegedly committed] by former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom cannot be tried domestically. We can’t take the master before the slave and ask the slave to judge him. So where else can we go?”

Attorney General Abdulla Muiz had not responded at time of press.

The ICC’s advocacy group – the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC) – on May 2 submitted a letter urging the Maldives to sign the treaty, which it claimed would “contribute toward strengthening the Asia and Pacific region’s under-represented voice at the ICC. Currently, only seven Asian states Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mongolia and Timor-Leste – are member states of the Court.”

The CICC’s Asia Regional Coordinator Evelyn Balais-Serrano said at the time the letter was sent that the decision would represent “a strong desire to be part of the international community’s collective efforts towards international justice”, and “signals its resolve to move forward in its goal of ending impunity locally and globally.”

Internationally, 114 states have ratified or acceded to the treaty, and 139 are signatories. According to the CICC, the ICC’s mandate stipulates that the Court will only intervene if national legal systems are “unable or unwilling” to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

Six pending investigations before the court include investigations in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Darfur, the Sudan, Kenya, Libya and Uganda. Three trials are ongoing, and 15 arrest warrants have been issued.

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Afrashim’s dismissal highlights JSC composition concerns: DRP deputy

A Parliamentary decision passed yesterday by 38 votes to 34 to remove Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) MP Dr Afrashim Ali from the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) raises further questions over the watchdog’s impartiality and reliance on political appointees, Ibrahim ‘Mavota’ Shareef has claimed.

Shareef, a DRP Deputy Leader, told Minivan News that he believed the no confidence motion against Afrashim, forwarded by Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MP “Reeko” Moosa Manik, was an “alarming” move by the government that was passed with “no valid reason”.

“If anyone elected to a position is not doing a job properly and perhaps there are more competent people who can do better, then [the removal] wouldn’t be a problem,” he claimed. “However, the MDP reason [for the vote] is not based on this. The government wants to use the JSC as a vehicle for [its own interests].”

The composition of the JSC, which serves as a watchdog for the country’s judiciary, was criticised by one independent judicial review body for failing to ensure transparency in its workings.

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) has maintained that although it was not illegal to rely on mostly political appointees as opposed to judicial and legal figures to oversee a national legislative watchdog, it was perceived as “bad practice”.

Criticisms of the JSC have also come from within the body itself by a former member selected by President Mohamed Nasheed. Presidential appointee Aishath Velezinee served as a whistle-blower by forwarding allegations of what she called a “silent coup” taking place in the JSC against the government.

Shareef said that he personally held concerns about relying on political figures to serve as JSC appointees when it came to overseeing the country’s courts, despite the process being constitutionally mandated.

“The fact that political appointees are allowed onto the body is not the best for the JSC. I myself have raised the wisdom [of allowing this],” he said. “In my view the JSC should be made up of members of the judiciary. However [composition requirements] are outlined in the constitution and we have to live with that.”

With the removal by parliamentary vote of Dr Afrasheem from his JSC post, Shareef claimed it remained vital to try and ensure the government did not have the ability to potentially “threaten the judiciary” with political appointments to the JSC.

“We [the political opposition] have lost representation on the body and we need a voice,” he said.

With the president entitled under the constitution to appoint a member of his own choice to the body – a position formerly held by Aishath Velezinee before she was dismissed with presidential praise last month – Shareef said he believed the opposition should be allowed a similar appointment.

“The opposition should be given the opportunity to appoint a representative itself to allow for equilibrium in the JSC,” he claimed.

ICJ view

The ICJ said it could not be commenting on Afrashim’s dismissal without additional details.

However, a spokesperson for the ICJ said previous reports on the Maldives had raised issues regarding the composition of the JSC relating to the number of political appointments made to the body compared to legislative and judicial figures.

“[Political representation] was identified as a key issue [by the ICJ] at the time in preventing the JSC from acting in an independent way,” said the spokesperson. “We are in no doubt that this current JSC has had no success in trying to bring about independence in the judiciary. We are not blaming any individual for this, but the JSC is not acting as it should be.”

As a matter outlined under the country’s constitution, the ICJ source said that the organisation accepted that changing such a system and finding a solution was difficult.

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Decision to remove Dr Afrashim from JSC “a victory for all reformists”, says Velezinee

Parliament today voted 38 to 34 in favour of a motion of no-confidence to remove opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) MP Dr Afrashim Ali from the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).

The motion to dismiss controversial religious scholar Afrashim from the judicial watchdog body was submitted by Majority Leader “Reeko” Moosa Manik of the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) last week.

The DRP had issued a three-line whip in an effort to save the embattled JSC member during today’s vote.

Breakdown of the vote

Afrashim’s defence

Responding to the multiple charges of misconduct, Afrashim denied that his appointment as the JSC’s representative to the Supreme Court violated article 163 of the constitution, which requires a majority of the commission’s 10 members to be in attendance for a vote.

Only five members of the JSC had signed in as present at the meeting in question on February 6.

Afrashim argued that seeking the approval of JSC members through telephone calls was standard practice while meetings could be held without a majority in attendance “under special circumstances.”

If members participated through audio conferencing, he added, “they can be considered to be present in a meaningful sense.”

On the matter of drawing allowances, Afrashim pointed out that the decision to award committee allowances was made by the interim commission in January 2009, prior to his appointment to the JSC.

“When we were selected for the commission, the Judicial Service Commission’s administration informed us to give our [bank] account numbers to deposit money,” he said. “We didn’t even know what that money was for. This is not something that we decided for ourselves unlawfully.”

Article 164 of the constitution states that “A member of the Judicial Service Commission who is not a member of the Executive, the Judiciary, or the People’s Majlis shall be paid such salary and allowances as may be determined by the People’s Majlis.”

Afrashim insisted that the article does not explicitly prohibit remuneration for commission members already receiving state incomes.

Moreover, as the article states that parliament could approve salaries and allowances for all commission members, Afrashim argued that the annual JSC budget, including provisions for committee allowances, was passed by parliament “because it was not in violation of the constitution.”

The JSC budget obtained by Minivan News confirmed that JSC members were in some cases receiving up to Rf 9000 (US$700) a month as a ‘committee allowance’; a total of Rf 514,660 (US$40,000) in 2010.

The DRP MP for Ungoofaru also denied any wrongdoing in the vetting process of reappointing judges in August 2010 – which took place amid concerns about the competency and integrity – as stipulated by article 285 of the constitution.

Echoing claims by fellow opposition MPs, Afrashim alleged that the resolution to remove him from the JSC constituted “an attempt to politically influence the judiciary and transfer judges.”

In his closing statement after the two-hour long debate, Afrashim alleged that President Mohamed Nasheed had called him on former DRP MP Alhan Fahmy’s phone and requested that Criminal Court Judge Abdulla Mohamed “be removed even if it meant disregarding principles and procedure.”

Former President’s Member on the JSC, Aishath Velezinee, described today’s decision in parliament as “a victory for all reformists.”

“The Majlis’ decision to remove Dr Afrashim for breach of trust and acting unconstitutionally raises a fundamental question about the legality of the courts today,” Velezinee said, highlighting the JSC’s hasty and untransparent reappointment of all sitting judges in August 2010.

“I blame the Speaker [Abdulla Shahid] for having sat in the JSC during Dr Afrashim’s treason,” Velezinee added. “He has lost all authority to remain as Speaker and thereby hold his seat in the JSC. The Majlis must now ensure that Article 285 is honoured in full, and judicial reform in undertaken as guaranteed by the Constitution.”

Dr Afrashim’s allegations that President Nasheed had attempted to bully him into dismissing the Chief Judge of the Criminal Court, Abdulla Mohamed, “sounded to me like a last minute life line,” Velezinee said.

“Afrashim never mentioned that in the JSC. And having sat as the President’s appointed member, I can vouch that President Nasheed never made any such request of me.”

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DQP calls on government to stop prostitution

The Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP) led by former Attorney General Dr Hassan Saeed has called on the government to take adequate measures to prevent prostitution in the Maldives.

‘’Prostitution has spread widely across the Maldives in the guise of health clinics and massage centres, to an extent that the citizens should be very concerned,’’ the DQP said in a statement.

‘’There is the chance people will say that prostitution is being conducted with the assistance and support of the government if the government remains silent on the issue instead of taking any action.’’

The DQP claimed the government supported prostitution, referring to video clips allegedly of senior government officials leaked by a blackmail ring prior to their arrest earlier this year.

The party also claimed the government was “keeping its eyes closed” on the issue despite prostitution being haram under Islam, which it claimed showed that the current government was not prioritising Islam in the country.

‘’We call on the government to take immediate measures to stop this and to prevent the society from falling into an illness,’’ the DQP said in its statement. ‘’We condemn statements from the government that these are not issues the government has to investigate.”

The statement also referred to the recent investigation by Sun Online journalists in which the journalists solicited girls in massage parlours.

Police arrested two Maldivian males and two Thai females for involvement in a beauty salon in Addu, for allegedly being involved in prostitution. The Addu Court extended the detention of the four arrested.

Press Secretary for the President’ Office Mohamed Zuhair did not respond to Minivan News at time of press.

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“Government can only be as good as its opposition,” says Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General

The Maldives “throws up all the challenges of consolidating a transition to multi-party democracy,” Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General Mmasekgoa Masire-Mwamba observed this morning at the opening of the Commonwealth’s regional workshop on parliamentary cooperation.

The aim of the workshop, she said, was to help create a constructive partnership between government and opposition parties in each participating country.

“While they may be political adversaries, they share a common national responsibility and obligation of nation-building and advancing the prospects of real development – human, political, social and economic — of the people of their respective countries,” she said.

“This can only be achieved if the political system works constructively for the welfare of all, not if it creates or exacerbates ruptures in society.”

Government and opposition have to see themselves as partners, Masire-Mwamba said.

“Government must acknowledge that there needs to be democratic space for the opposition to function and to enable other viewpoints to exist. Indeed it is often said that government can only be as good as its opposition – thus the role of opposition is a very real one in holding governments accountable and ensuring they deliver.

“On the other hand, oppositions also need to be constructive, using the democratic space provided responsibly to raise legitimate dissent where this is required, without becoming needlessly disruptive,” she suggested.

The Maldives’ consolidation of its hard-won democracy has been “long and bumpy”, Speaker of Parliament Abdulla Shahid noted, also speaking at the opening of the workshop.

“The state has spent the better part of the last three years struggling to demarcates the roles prescribed under the new constitution. It has been three years of exceptional experience for all of us,” he said at the launch of the event, which will run until June 15 at Traders Hotel in Male’.

“The perception of political parties injected a new paradigm into Maldivian politics. There is no simple formula to build a healthy rapport between political parties. The concept of a government with a legitimate opposition in the political spectrum was one that was hard to grasp for many,” Shahid said.

“We have had situations where some thought that the new democracy in the Maldives was too much for the very small and widely spread out society. We have instances in which some questioned whether democracy and the party system was te best form of governance for us. We have had instances when almost all hope was lost.

“It is to the credit of the leadership and the people of this nation that we have been able to sort out these challenges and resolve many of the encounters we have come across.”

The workshop is jointly organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), and hosted by the People’s Majlis in the Maldives.

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India to grant essential commodities to the Maldives

The Indian government yesterday approved the supply of a list of essential commodities requested by the Maldives government for the remainder of 2011, the Foreign Ministry has said.

According to the ministry, the government of India has approved exports of essential food commodities such as sugar, eggs, potatoes, onions, dhal, and wheat flour.

‘’While these commodities have been approved for a period of three years, construction materials such as stone aggregate and river sand have been approved for a year,” stated the ministry.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still waiting for the authorisation of rice from the Government of India.’’

Alongside India, the Foreign Ministry said that the government of Bangladesh had also authorised the export of stone aggregate to the Maldives resulting from negotiations held last year.

‘’During the recent visit by Foreign Minister Ahmed Naseem, the matter was expedited by Bangladeshi authorities,’’ the foreign ministry said. ‘’The Bangladeshi Government had requested the State Trading Organisation (STO) to conduct a feasibility assessment to work out the details between the two governments.’’

In his recent visit to Bangladesh, Naseem signed a memorandum of understanding “Concerning Placement of Manpower” with Bangladeshi government.

Officials at the Foreign Ministry claimed at the time that the MOU will help preserve the rights of the Bangladeshi labourers in the Maldives.

Amidst pledges of increased commodity supplies, The King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has granted 5 scholarship opportunities to the Maldives.

The Rector of the University, Dr Abdulla Al Usman noted that the scholarships will be available for the upcoming academic year during a meeting with Adam Hassan, the Maldivian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

”The scholarships granted by King Saud University are for postgraduate studies, and according to Dr Al Usman there were no specific allocations for either Masters or PhD,” the foreign ministry said.

The ministry also said that King Saud University is one of the oldest Universities in Saudi Arabia, with courses are available in the fields of engineering, sciences, food and agriculture, pharmaceuticals, Applied Medical Science and Nursing amongst others.

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Salaf to research and determine “the right president” for 2018

Religious NGO Jamiyyathul Salaf has issued a press statement calling on Maldivians to be patient while the NGO researches possible candidates that may run for the Presidential elections in 2018, and determine whether he is the right person to rule the country.

Salaf claimed that the presidential pledges candidates make during the campaigns are “nothing but poems”.

Salaf said that politicians and all the country’s democratic and irreligious systems had been unable to direct the Maldives towards a safe harbour.

‘’Those who are trying to change the laws concerning religion to destroy the country, have been granted more protection than Maldivian citizens,’’ Salaf said in the statement.

‘’We would like to announce that it is not something that Salaf will tolerate.’’

The NGO claimed that there were people in the Maldives challenging Islamic Sharia, criticising the religion of Islam and calling for the permitting of alcohol, homosexuality, and fornication.

‘’We are preparing for 2018. We will scan everyone that may run for the Presidential Elections and will advise the citizens about the right person,’’ said President of Salaf Sheikh Abdulla Bin Mohamed Ibrahim.

‘’We will form a committee and they will obtain information on figures who will run for the elections.’’

He said the NGO would  write letters to all political parties and request they inform Salaf about their presidential candidate and provide profiles, as well as information on the the services they have provided for Maldivians.

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Comment: The politics of arrogance

There are so many things wrong with our democracy. A dysfunctional judiciary, stunted and already disintegrating party system, politicised and unprofessional media, polarized society, growing intolerance, xenophobia and the list goes on. But whatever the affliction is, the one underlying factor is always corruption. We know, corruption is an old song sung by all politicians everywhere. But this time around, we are not talking about the corruption of the old, the established and the already corrupt, but about the corruption of a fairly young generation of politicians who will possibly remain in Maldivian politics for another 30-40 years. We are talking about the corruption of a generation of politicians who could have been defined otherwise.

What went wrong?

The Maldives is celebrated as a model for peaceful transition to democracy. The opening up of the political system that began in 2003 led to free and fair elections fairly quickly. The old autocrat was not arrested and thrown into jail as happens in so many other countries, but instead given a hefty pension package and left to himself for the most part. Three branches of the state were made separate and independent, and the fourth estate was given its due freedom. What went wrong?

What went wrong is strikingly similar to what goes wrong in so many African democracies. The liberator who wrenches his people from the clutches of exploitative colonial powers is hailed in as the good leader, and then the people are forever stuck with him. And he is good, at least in the prologue. He must have believed in freedom, in people’s right to make their own destinies and to live a good life, to have fought so long and hard and put his neck on the line. For his bravery and courage, he is rewarded with legitimacy, people’s love and admiration. And he is handed the ultimate prize (via a free and fair election, of course)- the chance to become the president of the first real democracy in that country. But somewhere along the line, the leader miscalculates how far he can push his legitimacy and thinks himself above the law. In order to ‘save his people’, he convinces himself that he has to do whatever it takes, and sometimes the whatever part involves ugly nasty immoral things like corruption, bribery and appeasing big businesses at the cost of the public good.

Let’s not forget the party machinery that often ushers in these liberator-type leaders. What eventually ends up becoming a political party often starts out as a movement, a movement for freedom, liberation and democracy. The sole purpose of the movement-cum-political party is to free the people. And as such, upon independence or at the end of dictatorship, the party becomes a mere vehicle for the liberator-leader to ride in to take his rightful place as the head of the new democracy. Sadly, the party ceases to become anything more. Tangled in the politics of the day, the party fails to mature. It lacks a clearly articulated ideology, a set of values or anything for that matter that can define it independently of its liberation history. And just for the record, no, five key pledges does not amount to an ideology. People cannot be expected to analyse the party manifesto and derive the party’s philosophy on their own, if it exists at all. And no, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s personality does not amount to an ideology either.

What is so wrong now?

The problem is, not only does the party continue to be the liberator’s vehicle to remain in power but it begins to destroy all other parties around it, sometimes by guns and outright violence, but in our case with ‘secret’ deals that are not only accepted, but boasted about in political circles and laughed over at cocktail parties. “Hey, I paid Mrf 5 million and a BMW for that guy over there” wink. “Oh really, well I paid about Mrf 15 million for this guy right here. Prices keep rising by the day…we better buy up all available on the market before prices go through the roof! Hohoho!” And so, riding high on liberation victory, the leader and his party come to practice a vile sort of politics. A politics of “only we can be trusted with power” and “damn those slow and tedious democratic process.” In short, the politics of arrogance.

Of course, the liberator and his party machinery try to justify this politics of arrogance. They say that if they do not deliver and make good on their key pledges, then not only may they lose elections come 2013, but that, lo and behold, they will surely lose it to the old dictator or his brother! Not only that, if the MDP fails to deliver, ‘the people’ will cease to believe in the promise of democracy! And God forbid, we cannot let these things happen, not after all the blood and tears, not after trying so damn hard to go by that complicated and cumbersome constitution.

Therefore, in its mad frenzy to get everything done before the clock strikes 12 o’clock in 2013, the MDP government, instead of putting up a steady honest fight, is buying the entire game and in the process, relying less and less on democratic processes. We need not look beyond parliament for evidence. Let us be clear, the MDP is not outwardly undemocratic. Besides the occasional slip of the tongue, it sticks to its narrative of democratic governance at the podiums. But away from the cameras and the public’s eye, the party and most Maldivian politicians engage in what can be termed as real deal-making. And this real deal-making almost always subverts democratic processes. Surely, this has to be informal politics at its best.

And again, just for the record, given the blatant political prostitution in parliament, even if the government builds an apartment for every Maldivian (doesn’t matter if they can afford it), a hospital (too expensive to maintain) on every island, establishes a fast ferry between all islands and makes every youth drug-free (but perhaps jobless), that does not prove that democracy worked. It merely proves that the MDP party machinery and its tactics worked. And these are two very different claims that have far-reaching consequences.

Why is it wrong?

The bitter result of the politics of arrogance and the corruption and bribery it necessitates is that it is imbibing a new generation of politicians with the view that politics is ultimately about being in power. That without absolute power, you cannot get anything done. That power is the be-all and end-all of politics. In doing so, they have changed the narrative of the land from “what is good?” to “what is the lesser evil?” And that is a damn shame. For if there was a reason I voted, it was because I trusted my elected official to make wise decisions that would contribute to me living well, and at the same time contribute to the greater good of the society. And I also trusted that official to not always see the greater good in monetary terms. And I also trusted that official not to cast the building of a harbor, an airport or a housing project as incompatible with sticking to democratic processes.

So the story goes that, the politics of arrogance not only deprives a nation of honest and virtuous politicians, but also buries the common good and on its tomb, plants the seeds of political power and waters it with the greed and lust of an emerging generation of crass politicians who are morally stunted and politically shackled for years to come.

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]

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