Streets of blue and yellow flags and posters of politicians carpeting every available surface leave little doubt that election fever has hit Male’, ahead of the country’s first local council elections.
Maldivians will go to the polls on Saturday to elect local councilors in the third major election since the introduction of multi-party democracy.
Candidates will compete for nearly 1100 positions across island, atoll and Male’ city councils.
According to data from the Elections Commission, the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) will be fielding approximately 930 candidates, and the opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) around 880. Of these, the MDP is fielding almost 60 women, the DRP 80. The religiously conservative Adhaalath Party is fielding 53 candidates, including two women, while the Jumhoree Party has 46 candidates and the People’s Alliance (PA) eight candidates, the same number as the Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP). The Vice President’s Gaumy Iththihaad Party (GIP) has 10 candidates.
Several key themes have emerged during the election campaigns, as both major parties convince voters of their respective merits.
President Mohamed Nasheed has spearheaded the MDP’s campaign, touring the country and highlighting government projects on each island, the number of people receiving welfare, completion dates for harbours and other such metrics of government assistance.
The DRP campaign has followed a divergent path after a factional split between leader Ahmed Thasmeen Ali and former Deputy Leader Umar Naseer, who was dismissed by the party’s disciplinary committee just prior the party’s election campaign but contends his dismissal was against the party’s regulations.
The relationship between the two remains frosty after a party rally in mid-December descended into a factional brawl, after supporters of the dismissed Naseer gatecrashed the venue.
However, the split has given the party two fronts in the campaign – “It has worked in their favour since they have been able to cover more fronts than the MDP,” observed the President’s Press Secretary, Mohamed Zuhair.
Opinion poll
Significantly, the local council election triggered the return to politics of former president and DRP ‘Honorary Leader’ Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, apparently backing Umar Naseer’s faction, despite anointing Thasmeen as his successor following his retirement from politics in February 2010.
Gayoom remains an enigmatic figure in Maldivian politics. The extent of his popularity since the DRP’s win in the parliamentary elections over two years ago is unclear, given the absence of independent and impartial political polling in the country and passionate partisan politics.
By his own account, recorded in a letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron late last year, “I continue to enjoy the strong support, love and affection of the people, and have been voted by the public as ‘Personality of the Year’ in both years since stepping down from the presidency.”
Certainly his return shook the MDP – Zuhair observed that Gayoom’s presence will “certainly get [the DRP] more votes. After 30 years of tenure many people still believe he is their benefactor.”
DRP MP Ahmed Mahlouf has previously suggested that the MDP was afraid of Gayoom and the loyalty he inspired in the party faithful.
“Gayoom is the only person with popular support, and that was clearly seen in the parliamentary election. [The MDP] are scared he will run in 2013,” Mahlouf said, on Gayoom’s return last month.
The MDP contends that its infrastructure and development projects have won over many islanders – hence the focus of the election campaign. However many Maldivians – especially Thasmeen – still live in the shadow of their ‘Honorary Leader’ of 30 years and blame the MDP for the many teething problems and political upsets of the fledgling democracy.
Gayoom’s return has raised the stakes, for both major parties. The results of the local council elections will serve as the first national opinion poll in two years, revealing both the extent of Gayoom’s continuing influence and whether the MDP has been able to successfully convince people that its politics are progressive.
The Addu factor
The cancellation of the City Council elections in Addu Atoll, has, in the words of a senior source in the President’s Office, “effectively disempowered 30,000 Adduans for the sake of vested political interests”.
It has also cost Rf220,000 (US$17,100) in wasted public money, according to the Elections Commission (EC), which was today defending itself from the MDP’s political wrath over this speed-bump in the party’s ambitions to decentralise the country.
A referendum held in October 2010 over the administrative consolidation of small islands, while suffering voter turnout of less than 30 percent, was overwhelmingly against the proposal – except in Addu Atoll, where the islands of Hithadhoo, Maradhoo, Maradhoo-Feydhoo and Hulhudhoo endorsed it, while only the islanders of Feydhoo and Meedhoo did not.
“In my view, the results of the referendum showed very clearly that citizens of the atoll want to develop as a city. So we will designate Addu Atoll as one city island,” President Nasheed announced.
The plan was derailed by the opposition Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP), when Deputy Leader Imad Solih succeeded in January of getting the Civil Court to rule that Nasheed did not have the authority to declare Addu a city as the criteria to do so had not been established.
That led to the burning of an effigy of Solih and protests outside the home of the party’s leader, former Attorney General Hassan Saeed, by both angry Adduans and MDP activists. One of the latter observed that the DQP’s case was something of an “own-goal” given that Saeed is himself Adduan.
Nasheed quickly corrected the technicality by installing Home Minister Hassan Afeef in the contentious Local Government Authority (LGA), which published the requirements for a city that afternoon in the government’s gazette.
Then, days before the election, the Civil Court ruled in a second case that the city criteria was invalid as it required “a majority”. Unable to wait for legal wrangling, the Elections Commission formally cancelled the local council elections for Addu, removing them from the contest and next to guaranteeing upheaval on Saturday.
“[The DQP] are arguing that the government is acting against the constitution, which is not correct,” Zuhair stated. “There is no rule stipulating the number of members required on the LGA. We will appoint the LGA and reissue exactly the same criteria, but because of this, Addu will have no representation on the Authority.”
Independence remains a sensitive subject for the southern atolls, particularly Addu, which in 1959 led the formation of a short-lived break-away nation called the United Suvadive Republic, together with Huvadhu Atoll and Fuvahmulah.
This was crushed in 1962 when Thinadhoo was destroyed on the orders of then-President Ibrahim Nasir, and the island of 4800 depopulated.
In one of history’s odd parallels, the Adduan under whose name the second Civil Court was filed was also a Nasir.
“He’s a cook on board a safari boat. He’s registered with the Vice President’s party [GIP], but our information suggests the DQP is behind this,” said Zuhair.
DQP-aligned news website, Maldives Today, waxed lyrical about the “proud son of Addu” who had succeeded in cancelling the atoll’s elections.
“He might be a crew of a wooden ship that carries rice, flour, and other consumables from Male’ to Hulhudhoo and Meedhoo. But nobody thought that this crewman might challenge the highest authority in Maldives. He challenged the president of Maldives in the civil court regarding how the criteria was set to make his home land Addu a city,” wrote the website.
“Some rogue elements within Addu blindly says that he is a villain,” it added.
The government has said it intends to appeal the decision, but that is unlikely to happen before Saturday, when the entire country will vote apart from Adduans. Protesters have already barricaded two courts, television news crews have been sent to the atoll, and there have been dark mutterings about the atoll’s potential for secession.
Zuhair contended that the intention of the opposition’s disruption was “simply to portray the government as ineffective – to make a political point.”
“The opposition [to decentralisation] in Male’ is there because traditionally the atoll and island chiefs have looked to influential office bearers in Male’ for what they need. This election will make them the masters of their own development,” he claimed.
“For example: in Male’ the planning department will design a 200 by 300 foot harbour for 20 islands, none of which are the same size. Many harbours are built this way, without local involvement.”
Expensive proposition
The new layer of government introduced by the elections will cost the Maldives over US$12 million a year in salaries and allowances, or US$220,000 per month. The President of every island council will receive a salary and allowance of Rf 15,000 (US$1160), council members Rf 11,000 (US$850). The mayor of Male’ will receive Rf 45,000 (US$3500).
In addition to salaries, explained acting Finance Minister Mahmoud Razee, parliament has allocated a further Rf200 million (US$15.5 million) to office expenses – at a time when the country has a double-figure deficit, a crippling foreign exchange shortage and complete reliance on a single industry.
“At this point in time we have to increase revenue and decrease waste – that’s the only way we can afford this,” Razee said, adding that the government was continuing to work with the Civil Service Commission (CSC) to “right-size” the bloated civil service.
“Nothing is easy in politics, but we have a moral obligation to do so. Insofar as the government and the CSC are concerned, our objectives are not far apart.”
Foreign consultants were, he said, presently working with the civil service to determine “if positions are required, and that the grade they are paid matches the work they are doing.”
Their report, he said, could be ready as soon as March-April. However international funders such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were last year expressing a growing frustration with the Maldives’ tendency to put politics above economics, and the bill for the local council elections had not escaped their notice.
One senior MDP figure, questioned as to whether the Maldives was in a position to afford local government – or, for that matter, anything – responded with a cavalier “we’ll figure it out after the elections”.
UN Resident Coordinator Andrew Cox summarised the problem.
“This is going to be a very interesting experience, perhaps in some ways a difficult experience for the Maldives,” he said.
“We all know the challenges of development in the Maldives; the geography makes transport very expensive, very difficult, and some of the islands which are inhabited are very small. It can be very hard sometimes for some of these islands to have their voice heard at a national level.
“The opportunity that is offered by these elections is that people can take greater responsibility for the government which affects them on a day to day basis, and it’s very interesting in theory. But in practice, how is that going to work?”
Local Council Election Guide (English)
Credit: Analysis spreadsheet prepared by Aishath Aniya. Data sourced from Elections Commission.
Correction: A calculation error in an earlier version of the election spreadsheet mistakenly listed the number of independent candidates as 2500. The actual number is 765. This has been corrected.
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