Mustafa Hussein: Opposition Must Grow Up

Mohamed Mustafa Hussein, former Ambassador to the United Nations and health minister during President Gayoom’s first term, returned to the political stage last month after a twenty-year break.

Now a representative of the National Unity Alliance, the man who was once considered a potential president tells Minivan News why he is unhappy with political activism and who he holds responsible for thirty years of Gayoom rule.

“Too radical”

So why did the self-proclaimed “servant of the people” not join the reform movement earlier?

“When the movement … got started,” Mustafa explains, its activities were “not the kind of things I would have wanted to be a part of” – they were simply “too radical”.

A Maldivian aristocrat and the founder of Malé’s English School, Mustafa has always operated through public institutions rather than fighting them.

Questioning whether politics as such even exists in the Maldives, he says “the closest you get to politics [here] is…being arrested for criticising the government.”

Whilst denying he has a problem with activism in itself, he believes opposition campaigners have in the past gone “to the extent of breaking certain laws and rules” – which as a “law-abiding citizen” he would not have considered doing.

The extent of opposition lawbreaking has long been a bone of contention between activists and government. Opposition leaders argue peaceful protests have been branded as riots – whilst the government and police say they have genuinely turned violent.

Mustafa identifies the opposition movement, pioneered by members of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) in the early years of the new century, as “the kind of thing that could have been only started by very young people – people young enough to be looked after by parents”.

Though older activists have repeatedly been jailed, he believes anyone who was “the provider to the family” would have found it difficult to take the “bold step” of becoming an activist.

“I blame the people”

But in a surprising sequel to his indictment of activism, Mustafa tells me, “I blame the people” for the length of time the president has ruled.

He believes around 75% of Maldivians would happily vote for the current government – a trend he attributes to poor education outside Malé, where citizens “don’t care whether the sun rises or the sun sets” and “can be bought”.

Payment for votes is a significant problem in the country, he believes.

And identifying a new “hypocrisy” in Maldivian culture, he says “about 80% of the people who are in very good positions in the government now … don’t like President Gayoom.”

Similarly, Mustafa says, ordinary citizens revere Gayoom’s position as the country’s leader, even as they complain about the direction the country is taking.

Yet whilst hypocrisy is not the way forward, neither is outspokenness.

“He will be more hurt,” Mustafa believes, “if you speak politely.”

Growing up

Sharing a platform with the younger generation is, it seems, a problematic area and some factions of the opposition may still be too much for Mustafa to stomach.

“We mustn’t be activists all the time,” he believes. “We can be babies when we are babies” – but “you have to grow up.”

He will not be drawn on which party’s policies attract him most, but says “there is not a single party in the Maldives which is showing maturity – this includes the president’s party”, though he does feel there are mature individuals in the political scene.

Some have argued Mustafa’s return to politics represents a new generation of elder statesmen adding gravitas to the opposition.

“I think I can offer a lending hand to the alliance who are going to unite as a political force,” he says.

Opposition parties have formed the National Unity Alliance to lobby for an interim government to implement the country’s new constitution ahead of next year’s multi-party elections.

“The next constitution can only take hold of its roots by a very fair electoral process,” Mustafa adds.

“I don’t know how a government that has been in power for so long can guarantee that to the people without stepping aside.”

Gayoom: Mr nice guy?

“Maumoon Abdul Gayoom…had been a very nice person, very honest, very concerned for people,” reflects Mustafa, recalling his past links with the president.

Like many Maldivians, he believes Gayoom’s character changed after he was “ushered” onto a “political pedestal,” and blames this change on “family members, in laws, who were not political people”.

Aware he was being sidelined, Mustafa eventually resigned. But he compares his fate wryly with that of recent defectors from government.

“Now you are a big shot when you resign – you are a star!” Mustafa observes – even if you were “very unpopular just before, and…really ridiculed” whilst in government.

The “New Maldives” group of former ministers, along with the president’s half-brother Abdullah Yameen, all left government in 2007 to join the opposition.

But leaving the government in the 1980s meant losing friends and becoming “a hostile enemy of the government”.

“Even my own friends were scared of me,” he recalls.

Yet it seems that despite his reservations, the politician who was “labelled a bad boy” by ministers in the Gayoom government is now prepared to campaign for the other side.

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