The country is broke and the price of living is going up every day while the standard of living is going down.
The price of a can of tuna is now 20 percent higher than it was a few months ago. A valhoa mas kiba, part of our staple food since time immemorial, is now beyond the common person’s reach. A bottle of water was Rf10 just a month ago; it is Rf14 this month.
Electricity bills, water bills, gas bills, are all hugely more expensive than any other country in the neighbourhood. A majority of people are living hand to mouth.
A vast chunk of the country’s youth population are either addicted to drugs or recovering from it. They are unemployable, and out on the streets, committing crimes big and small or looking in vain for another chance at life.
The standards of teaching in public schools are abysmal, and private schools remain an unaffordable dream for the majority. To say that public schools are free is to lie through one’s teeth; for people are paying through their noses for private tuition – a parallel education system that exists in a parallel universe. It is the elephant in every classroom that nobody in authority wants to talk about – the government cannot regulate it without first acknowledging the massive failings in the education system; and a majority of the teachers do not want to talk about it because it is the cash cow that supplements their meagre incomes.
Children from other islands are having to migrate to Male’, boarding with host families or packed into small rooms the rent of which they share; paid by parents who break their backs working on farms or on fishing boats, just so their children can get an education. The housing crisis and social problems related to overcrowding increase.
The health system is too weak to cope with any unexpected outbreaks of disease; Maldivian doctors are still the minority and are offered less pay and benefits than their expatriate counterparts; and infant and adult mortality rates are needlessly high. It was all too clear to see with the recent dengue fever outbreak.
Unemployment rates are sky-high while trafficked Bangladeshis are bought and sold by the planeload. They live in their scores of thousands working and living on building sites; existing in an alternate realm of worker drones, buzzing away in the background, building, serving, cooking, cleaning, maintaining; jobs that Maldivians consider themselves too good to be doing.
Their presence is acknowledged only when the buzzing gets annoying; when their levels of ‘civilisation’ are deemed not to match our allegedly impeccable manners and faultless social graces; and when foreign governments chastise the Maldives for its cruelty for putting a price on the heads of human beings and selling them to the highest bidder.
Longstanding traditions of peace, friendliness and cleanliness have disappeared; replaced with avarice and aspirations of grandeur achieved by any means possible. Basic civility, let alone friendliness, is conspicuous in its absence: the smile; the queue; the exchange of niceties; respect for the elderly; the weak and the vulnerable; the knowledge of belonging together – what are they? People push, shove and climb over each other to get to an undefined ‘there’ faster than anyone else – literally and metaphorically.
It is all there to see in the pantomime that the Majlis is enacting, fiddling with democracy as society burns. What is the purpose of these theatrics? Are we supposed to be impressed with his behaviour? Are we supposed to admire this display of ignorance as ‘people power’? Is this to be seen as standing up (or sitting down) for the rule of law? Are we supposed to applaud these MPs for their ‘valour’ in forcing a needless confrontation between legislative and military power?
Are we supposed to cheer in adulation or tremble in fear when one MP who was only recently bought by one party now shouts at the party he had just left?
Are we to ignore the fact that if such members did indeed have an ideology, or a set of deeply held political beliefs or values they would not be so easily bought and sold?
Are we supposed to laugh with them and chuckle at the smirks on their faces when they are being led away by the army? Are we supposed to let our children hear the filth that is sprouting from their mouths into our airwaves on daytime TV? Are we to appreciate as media savvy the manner in which, like a bunch of schoolboy bullies in a playground, they are taking photographs and videos of each other being bundled away by men in army fatigues?
Are we supposed to be appreciate as role models of feminism the female voices heard screeching like cockatoos at the spectacle of MPs being carried away like chimpanzees by zoo handlers? What exactly is being celebrated here? What state will our nation be in the coming years if these are our highest representatives, if this is the pinnacle of success that our children as future leaders can aspire to?
Whatever destruction that three decades of dictatorship could not unleash on our society with its ruinous policies, society is wreaking upon itself. We did not have a transition to democracy, we just changed one supreme power to which we subjugate ourselves for another: Mammon for Maumoon.
The Majlis should be where the people turn to for solutions to their problems. It is, however, both the representation of all our problems as well as their nucleus and their source.
What a sham.
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there are no words to explain the frustration we feel towards our politicians. I am so so disappointed with MDP.we had such high hopes that you would create a better society for us; but no...you only work for your interest and the attainment of absolute power. so is the DRP. All of you politicians are an embaressment, i wish we could not have a parliament in this country. I have not seen its necessity. ts a waste of money which could be better utilised if invested to adress public need
In brief, Maldives in a nut-shell eh?!
very very well written and every sentence cant be more true.
thank you for this!!!!!
Excellent poignant analysis Azra! Could not have been said better. I will now be watching this space for comments of political hooligans from both sides to this article! I bet it will a reflection of what you are seeing in the majlis.
Azra: you must have been away for too long. Welcome to the "Sunny Side of Life"!
As people would say 'This is Maldives' - a 100% Muslim country. Male' the Capital is not just a melting pot but a world of its own.
There is no "society' left to burn! Get used to it.
Calm down Azu, this is it. This is the c h a n g e CHANGE. Executive and Parliament changed to monkeys. Journey to the beginning. According to Darwin.
Nobody in the Majlis seems to genuinely give a fat rats crack! Mending the country and saving it from gangsterism, extremism, the onslaught of poverty, drug addiction and homelessness is just a big amusement for these MP's! Most Honorable thrill seekers, it's not going to be so much fun when you find out your own children are dying from heroin addiction, or are murdered by gangsters, or when YOUR daughters have the crap beaten out of them or are reaped by extremists, is it, huh! Will you be watching and enjoying that as if it was a circus! You stupid, selfish small hearted, vindictive losers! Let go of your selfish, prideful hate for each other, MP's and Politicians, and grow some real balls to fight for your little country. Honorable scum, don't just head wank yourselves all day long in a completely useless sham you call a Majlis whilst outside, Paarteys stab each other over a little heroine!
Free your people from fear and desparation, from the poverty and injustice which feeds extremism and injustice, free your ppl!
I meant, free your people from fear and desparation, from the poverty and injustice which feeds extremism and addiction, free your ppl!
Oh, for other Westerners listening to Maldivians, don't be brainwashed by either side of Maldivian politics into believing one side is all pure and liberal and the other is all evil, like I was, please! There is a very powerful force of greed, selfish ambition, hate, nation destructive vengefullness on both sides. I had been hurt by Yameen and Maumoon myself, and took sides with Anni and MDP, but, taking sides with either side is fuelling the flames of vengeance, greed, and selfihness on whichever side you take. Help by caring for the genuinely oppressed, and act on that, but don't get involved in the extravagent clashes between the families, please!
This whole mess is created by both Mr. Nahseed and Mr. Qayoom. Qayoom created the society and Nasheed is now leading it in a way much worse than Qayoom. Qayoom though cruel and inhumane knows to hide it behind a veil. Nasheed cannot hide it, he pretends to be a democrat but is far from it. Both these two characters are mentally challenged and Maldivian would be better off without them.
My above comment was somewhat unreasonable. The truth is, like any political squabble in the world, there are some beautiful motivations and some good sentiments on both sides of Maldivian politics. Yet, again like any political squabble, the problem is, a lot of the g'force propelling both sides of this clash is greed, ambition, hunger for vengeance rooted in deep, bitter squabbles between familes which goes back many years. I should know better, as one of the studies I conducted whilst at uni was about how struggles between the working classes in all nations had been controlled and hijacked by powerful members of the old aristocracies who were using the working classes to take vengeance against the nouvea rich merchant classes. That TSk TSK character was right! I studied as such, revolutions and figures are promoted by one sided versions of events, if not outright lies thenm massive exaggurations of the truth, selective truth! I did know better, but my personal hatred for Yameen blinded me to simple realities.
Do you see how hatred steals the truth from our own minds! You see how hurt contaminates our ability to be rational, reasonable! It stops us from genuinely caring for others as our motives become selfish! The most rational human beings can become deluded by their own hurt!
Both sides have there good and bad. The DIVIDE between good and bad goes straight through the heart of every human, it is not a blue and yellow divide in the Maldives, thats for fricking SURE!
Yet both sides in Maldivian Politics are the worlds greatest experts at convincing even the most knowledged Westerners that their side are the innocent, pure victims and the other side is the Iblis, the Shaitan released onto the world!
I have to agree with Jamee. Most people had so much hope but now it has been dashed and all we again look forward is to another day when things can hopefully get better.
President Nasheed has to take most of the blame for this state of affairs. We all know that he can stop the MDP MPs behaving like that. But he encourages them. If one party starts to act responsibly, then the others will be forced to do so too. The Male' City Council is a joke. WTF do they think they are doing? Now the PG's statement has made them a joke and showed to the rest of The World, that we have idiots in places of responsibility.
Maybe it is the time the General Public realise what we are heading for and take matters into their own hands and bring out a much needed change like the one Azra is mentioning before Maldives become a failed state.
No hope!. when the mdp did a small right thing by taking over the unused bussiness property of the former president for the common good there was this huge uproar about civil liberty and bla bla.. So there is no help. we do not yet has the guts to make this right. To make our country right we have to resort to drastic measures, like imprisoning yaameen (by any means,, even if evidence is not found: invent it if not found...), arresting Nazim, bringing hameed to Maldives in shackles etc... if we cannot do this then we do not have enough guts to demand democracy.
Ben, Would you make up your mind already?
Great article Azra, I along with probably every sentient being in society agree with you totally.
The way I see it, when a company lives beyond it's means and appoints executives that are not fit for office, there will come a time when the company ceases to become viable. It's customers will start to ask questions about the shoddy service they are receiving and eventually switch supplier if they can.
The whole executive of Maldives is a company like that, we have an executive that spends and appoints as if the IMF has said we will fund you whatever you do.
We have a Judiciary that still at best fails to do justice, crime rates through the roof, criminals that continue to steal, rape and insult us by their very presence.
Next a morally bankrupt Majlis, devoid of any real worth that hang's limp in it's physical dysfunction. It even fails miserably as entertainment like some awful reality show gone wrong.
The point in reality is this, are we, the citizens of this country prepared to watch this whole stinking mess go bobbing along like a faulty sewage farm, or are we prepared to take some responsibility for voting in all of these people in the first place.
What do we call it when the rules are used against us by the very people we elected to uphold them in the first place? Isn't it treason when officials take money under false pretense, fail to do their job, pay themselves more and then castrate the entire population when they should be enabling growth?
Let's demand results or they can walk, every last one of the sorry fraudsters, we need to take responsibility all of us for our country.
@Azra, Jamee, Manik: Your criticisms of the parliament make it seem as though democracy cannot work in Maldives!
It has lead to some calling your own ppl animals!
BUT it is not MDP who have done this, but the opposition!
Lets make this clear!
The opposition WANT democracy to fail always have!
They want you to be dependant on them like slaves!
You must fight them for your humanity, for your dignity! The efforts of the opposition to use their conrol of the Parliament to render the Government impotent, unable to Govern has allowed them to prove their point to the world that the Maldivians are not civilized enough for a democracy to succeed.
Yet, never forget, that they are the ones who have forced the Dhivehin to believe that they are an uncivilised lot! They have degraded the humanity of the Maldivian intentionally just to prove that they were right! They have strangled, suffocated the hope for the dignity of the Dhivehin! They want the Dhivehin to feel helpless, dependant on them, powerless, in order so that they the opposition can feel all powerful over them! The struggle of the Dhivehin for autonomy, for freedom from fear, for personal independance has been brutally destroyed by this opposition!
The basic argument for a dictatorship is based on a need for efficient decision making in a time of crisis.
Because the opposition have made it clear that Maldivians cannot make decisions efficiently enough to save the country, some have been deluded into beliving that because THEY the opposition were right all along, they are the smarter, and should be in power!
Please Maldivian people, do NOT fall for this cruelty of the opposition! They have robbed you of your ability to be free, because, they the opposition want you to be at their feet, worshipping them, like the poorest classes of old in the Maldives worshipped the Sultans and the Be’fulhu, degrading their Allah given RIGHT to dignified humanity so that THEY can be Gods.
Yet the opposition, in attempting to be your GOD, Maldives, have committed the sin of Firaun! There is NO GOD BUT GOD!!!
You must fight them!
La Ilaha IlAllah!
You must not allow their evil to succeed!
Get rid of all of them, the hardcore elements of the opposition and have elections without them! Only without them will democracy succeed, will freedom win, will you gain your DIGNITY!
This is what happens when we elect an activist to run a country. Lets hope we get better leaders to choose in 2013. It is now clear that our president has failed - His regime is more corrupt than the government we had under Maumoon.
@ Ben.
Don't try to fools us ok. If you really care about us Maldivians why the f..k u don't write about the corruption. Why you don't want to talk about the letters of former Immigration controller Ilyas to President? Why u don't want to talk about the fact that 20000 illegal expatriates were brought in since MDP came in? Why u don't want to say its not right for government to do management audit of Immigration while their is an independent AG? Why u keep your bloody mouth shut when all our islands are given just like that to companies set up by MDP elites without competitive bidding?
So u want us to be slaves of MDP elites and European cooperations. We know whats going on. Even if we put all the former government officials in jail, still maldivian middle and lower class will live like slaves. Because its the capital and land stupid? Not labour, Labour are slaves. Its the banks stupid? Banks creates money out of thin air and earn interest? This is how the jewish economy is setup. Its usury eating us. We are not so dumb. Even if we don't go to universities we have the ability to read whats not taught in your universities. You are brain washed to build the Jewish empire. We know about Henry George, we now about Mathematically Perfected Economy. We know that we can free us from debt, free ourselves and make equal distribution of wealth. With the current theories and financial policies in practice even if we have Juses as our president, we will still be slaves. Like consumers, we will be the ones running empires of the rich. We are the sheep. Its the usury stupid. Its capitalism stupid.Its the bilderberg group, rothchilds and rockefellers stupid. In Maldives its is Koli clan, Champa, Buruma, Kerafa, Velana,..... Clan stupid. Maumoon was their puppet. Why don't you being such educated ask why the Koli and Champa clan were silent for 30 years? Where is this Koli clan now. Aren't they funding dictator Nasheed now? Where is this Ilyas guy? Remember the FPID millions? Why is he given a red passport by this government? Why is government giving him islands without bidding? Do you know that koli clan blocked a development project of airport by former government because their Kurumba resort must be confiscated?
Because Anni is one sided and believes that Jesus sacrificed for his sins he is out of control. He is a puppet of yours you are promoting. You think we don't know who that guy is and what is your ulterior motive.
To rest my case all I have to say is I prefer being an economic slave of a Maldivian than become a slave of Jews or Europeans. You are descendants of Charlemagne? You will know how evil he is.
@ MA,
Calm down. Ben is a Maldivian like you. He is too scared to use his real name.
That is just simply capitalism,there is not good examples of it.And as well,the system designed to manage big countries and mega-polices cannot be applied for the ,let say straight villages.It's joke.No islands needed any central government.Rot-Front
@yaamyn Ben Plewright is an Australian married to a Maldivian who had the misfortune to run into our thickheaded beauracracy and having experienced frustration there, went on to find more frustration from the Hon. Abdulla Yaameen. How and why, I don't know; frankly, I don't care. But I'll grant you that Ben is if nothing else passionate about his (somewhat misguided) love for Maldivians.
@Ben Dude, chill. The average Maldivian is smarter than you give him credit for. The sad truth is that we have a mentality of not caring so long as our private lives are not affected. As illustrated in the article above, it's a rat race to a finish that we don't know and can't even see. Politics is an entertainment in a nation without many other forms of it, and ends up being our table talk. Sure, we're passionate about it when we speak, but at the end of the day so long as we are able to pay the bill for the coffee, or have someone pay for it, then it's all good and time to take a ride around Male' before going to sleep. So no matter what you say, we know exactly who Qayyoom is, and who Nasheed is. And we know what we do and don't like about them as well. But at the end of it all, we just don't care so long as we get our cup of java and our entertainment. Ergo the monkeys in the parliament. Imagine how impossibly boring it would have been had we elected reasonable people to power.
@Ben,
Democracy or any other form of government would not work in Maldives or anywhere else. Because it always gives a small group of people, the power to control the resources of a country. And we all know power corrupts. The problem is not with DRP or MDP or any other parties established in the name of representing people. The problem is the system itself.
Dont sit there and wait for a sign from god (Who does not exist, by the way) The only way to stop the corruption is peaceful protesting.
Oh, and @Azra, great article as always. Cheers to that.
Azra's opinion is appreciated, she seems to have described Maldivian society quite well, but she could have delved deeper into the possible causes of this turmoil.
The tone of the article towards the end seems blame the Executive for the social malaise today. Such simplistic shallow reports can only contribute to polarize society further.
A government can only be as responsible as the opposition. An opposition can only be as responsible as the electorate. This is how democracy works.
The zero-sum game in politics is what the DRP, PA, had chosen and this is what's played. Only when the the continued support of their electorate comes into question will politicians change.
Unfortunately @Aisha, it didn't take long before the blue and yellow voices spoke out in support of their side. What a shame that so many people in society are so narrow minded that they can't think past blue/yellow, that they haven't got the capacity to think outside the box and look at the bigger picture outside of party politics and the never ending conflict for power.
The author is clearly talking about the failure of society as a whole. Not which party is to blame. I think her words speak for themselves. The people of this country have voted in a crowd of, what can only be described as, ignorant hooligans to represent them in parliament. Now why is that? Watch the video nad see for yourselves. How can any of you blame a particular party? Is that not a little naive. I don't see one party to blame for this, I see the majority of the people/monkeys in that room who are to blame. I see the people who put them there that are to blame. What do you expect when you vote for uneducated footballers, actors and house servants to represent you? Why not get some actual educated people who can actually do something about the state of the country. Stop blaming MDP/DRP/PA/President/Ex-president. Start looking at yourselves and the people around you. We are a disgrace. A joke.
Ben,what are you talking about? I am saying that we need to act NOW before Maldives become a failed state. We need democracy and proper democracy and not what we have now. Why blame the opposition only? Surely everyone knows that they want democracy to fail in Maldives and if we are going the way we are now they may well succeed.
Just because some one is a terrorist, it does not mean that to beat them we all have to be terrorists.
The Government cannot follow the way the opposition is acting. The Government has to be acting responsibly.
I have also said that us, the public, has to be responsible for electing these idiots to The Majlis.
But when you have the Chairperson of the MDP acting like that in Parliament, it reflects on the President who, either cannot control his party or he encourages this act and I know which option is right one.
This is an absolute disaster in Maldives right now. It is time that most people got their act together and save our country before it is too late.
Nice to "see" so many of us "being concerned" about the plight of this nation and fearing the country becoming a "failed state".
Fact of the matter is, its just another day in "Paradise". Tomorrow it will another set of headlines and articles and more comments like above. The news cycle will roll on.
I wonder what defines a "failed" state. As far as I am concerned this is already a failed State. The country is also drowning in Islamic Extremism which by the way is rising faster than the feared Sea Level Rise.
Paradise Lost?
This is the kind of politics that leads to serious problems, like violence between political factions. It might happen sooner than you think since it is actively and openly encouraged by some people even now. We might kill ourselves before we disappear under the sea.
@MA: Yes I have written against the raw capitalism and have many times written for the workers...
@Zayd: I see Maldivians as the most intelligent ppl I have known, more on that later, my problem is not the lack of intelliegence but the repression
@Manik: I know Brother you wrote because you want to save the little democract left and build on it and you are right, and with will like yours your paradise has a lot of hope
@Ben. Start talking about white collar corruption of this government if your are indeed concerned about Maldives. Instead of still reminding us of maumoonism and islam. Seriously need to do an analysis of where we were and where we are today. What are the new laws and policy changes to combat corruption. Do we need anti corruption commission or not?Need to ask why the government wants to end their term without a tender law? Isn't it a joke when everything else the previous government did is horrible other than the tender process?
@MA Dear Brother calling himself MA. Ok, I will endeavour to research into this, but, please believe me, I have written against this unadulterated greed alot...
OK Ben, I am placated but I also have the fortune(if anyone can call that now) of living in other democracies and am probably a lot older than most people who post here and so have seen Nasir, Gayoom and now Anni at the helm and would like to move forward with the dawn of democracy in Maldives.
At least now we have "freedom after speech" in Maldives now. But I would like the Maldives to be a much better place and am confident that it would be so if the Government stops making huge mistakes. It seems that everyone is in this for personal gain and most of them are Duffers.
When you look at the salaries of some of these incompetent people in the government owned companies with salaries of over 70,000 ruffiyya per month, that is taking the p***.
Then let us look no further than the Majlis and the the Councils. It is pathetic enough to make people cry.
The opposition is to blame too but the Government and the MDP has to take an equal share of the responsibility for this state of affairs. It is pointless building floating Golf Courses and other stuff, while the poor are getting poorer and the country is going down faster than a lead balloon.
@Manik: Yes.
Turning pain into power for compassion rather than fuel for hatred is a battle all people go through, sometimes, the compassion wins, sometimes, the hate wins.
Like Nietzche said, suffering is the key to both power and destruction, it is the breakdown of Apollo (reason and order) and the rise of Dionysis (passion and will...)
It is evident that you are wise enough to see that the taking of sides, the embrace of hatred in the form of supporting a politicial side is a waste.
The problem is, whilst good sentiments and good ppl exist on both sides of this clash, a lot of the g’force propelling both sides of this clash is greed, ambition, hunger for vengeance rooted in deep, bitter squabbles between familes which goes back many years, and of course you have seen this as you said.
I respect that you understand this far deeper than myself, I have a long way to go in understanding all of this. I only hope that by the time I have experienced as much as yourself, I would have won the struggle to transform my pain into wisdom, reason and compassion for the genuinely oppressed, and that the hatred dissipates. In that journey, you are there, I am, obviously, still only starting out.
I will be more respectful.
Yes, from now on, my focus is, the poor and oppressed, not the squabble for power between the demi Gods!
My only message to your leaders is: Use your money, energy and time to free your people from fear and desparation, from the poverty and injustice which feeds extremism and addiction, free your ppl!
@Zayd: I follow the blogs of Maldives and the Maldivian mind is brilliant. Maldivians are geniuses. My Son is seven, his teacher told us he was a little genius, he gets him from the Maldives genes. The article above, by Azra, it is absolutely brilliant, as is the work of all the authors I read here. The humour of many of those who write Maldivian blogs is just, so intelligent it is genius. I am not surprised that Maumoon Abdul-Gayoom was the only ever non-Arab to win the top award for Advanced Religious Arabic at Al-Azhar. I don't think that any Australian Professor or Politician could rattle off qoutes from even HALF of the think tanks which Dr. Shaheed rolls of his tounge. Here in Australia, by far the MOST knowledged Alim in our Muslim communities is a Maldivian, Professor Abdullah saeed, an absolute genius. This is despite the fact that thousands of Al-Azhar graduates etc... are here, native Arabic speakers. There are many thousands of Indoneisan, Malaysian, Indian, Pakistani and Arabic Muslim scholars here, yet the Maldivian stands head and shoulders above them all, by a mile! His books can be found in normal bookstores. When Australia's Grand Mufti stepped down, the Muslim thinkers all pushed for Dr. Saeed to take over, but the fundamentalist push chose one who fit the look.
The Maldivian mind is special, rare, no one can deny that Maldivians are geniuses... Per capita, Maldivians, I am very very sure, have a far higher IQ than any others.
BUT... Per Capita, the social problems in Maldives are also more extreme.
Ben, I agree with what you are saying. What is mind boggling is that a lot of educated and sensible people seems to be caught in this time warp and no criticism of the Government is accepted. I have been active in this thing for a long time and long before MDP was even born and the sentiments of the initial struggle and now seems to be so vast I do not think it would be possible to get much closer.
For all his faults Nasir had a very good working government bureaucracy and this was what Gayoom utilised to the full, especially during his early years.
Now MDP comes in a throws this thing wide open and frankly most of the current lot have no clue and no idea about running an administration.
The Civil Service is so divided and appoint the wrong people to the wrong posts. To further compound this the Government follows and appoint the wrong people to the wrong posts and this is what we get now.
There is no accountability at all and it is everyone for himself.
A good example is the Male' International Airport. The current MD of MACL was transferred during Gayoom's time because they felt he was not delivering the goods. MDP appoints a MD when they came to power and then sacks him and brings back the former MD, with even a bigger pay of around 70,000 MRF. Then to make matters worse, they sell the airport( long term concession) to a foreign party.
What is the purpose of bringing him back for such a big salary if they give the airport to a foreign party to operate and develop? They could have hired an accountant to oversee that GMR pays what is due to the Government. These are just examples of what is going on now.
I think all these political shenanigans on show are deliberate so that the public would only be focussed on the TV dramas played out by the politicians instead of trying to hold the government accountable to all these kinds of things.
Unfortunately for Malidive, I do not think that we would recover and become normal within the next 10 years no matter who is the President. I know that if Gayoom comes back it would be a lot worse and I for certain do not want to go back to the last 20 years at least.
I think MDP would also fracture and there would be probably 3 parties in Maldives in the future with MDP, a new party and DRP most probably a Gayoom backed party( till he dies). The anti Gayoom/Yameen sentiment is uniting a lot of people and keeping them in MDP. They will remain so till they see an alternative to MDP that is anti Gayoom/Yameen.
So far the opposition has been pathetic to say the least.
It is a very interesting scenario if one is not involved but I sincerely hope that Maldives do not suffer too much on the path to democracy and prosperity.
Take heart people.
The disillusionment of the Maldivian people gives us the potential for strength.
Most of us who are sane and educated do not support either of the major parties at the moment. However the whole problem begins with the head of state.
We have the means to unseat him and the rest of the parliament as well. When we look for a replacement next time, let's try and make an informed decision.
- Vote in people who have considerable (and I mean really considerable) experience in administration.
- Do NOT vote in anyone under the age of 30 to parliament.
- Vote in people who display diplomatic tendencies and not firebrand activists.
- Vote in persons with academic qualifications and proven expertise in their field.
- Look for objective measures of integrity. Like for example, past criminal convictions, debt service etc. Also examine those who hover around our candidate of choice in order to discern whether he might be influenced by the wrong sort of characters once in office.
It would be extremely utopian to find someone who fits neatly into the category I have outlined, however, shall we try to make an informed decision and weigh the pros and cons before gifting a person with power.
you would think that our mp's would feel some level of shame to have these videos broadcast ... but it seems that they do not care any more of what the people may think. how can we expect them to serve in the best interest of our country and our people.
I see, I souppse that would have to be the case.