Sunday 5 February 2012

Deadlock with the Parliament and the attempt to undermine the Constitution to establish a rouge Capitalist regime while making deals with international companies involved in boiler room scams have to end.

Countries embrace democracy and people fight for democratic systems because it is the political system that provides social, justice, equality, freedom, and most of all the right to take part in decisions that shape their lives in a representative government.
One can easily make the claim that for Maldives; Democracy the word was used in order for the current Maldives government to come to power. Far from implementing and practising the democratic norms established under the new Constitution adopted in 2008; we have let MDP and Nasheed set up a highly paid dictatorship that openly declared that they will go outside the Constitution to get their way, .
The word democracy has no meaning as far as the new political order of the Maldives under MDP is concerned. The one place where the voices of the people are heard even slightly is through the Parliament constituting of members elected by the 200 inhabited islands of Maldives. However in recent months the Parliament is constantly in deadlock with the Executive, where often the President and his appointees undermine the Parliament in their high stake decision making and management of the country.
The reason for the deadlock is almost always in relation to the governments sale of state assets that have generated income for the country for decades.
Maldives according to the UN; the majority of the people are living a life way below the poverty line, and at the moment the country is experiencing an economic downturn where inflation rates have reached uncontrollable levels and life is a battle for survival for the poverty-stricken families. Poverty and inequality have led to a culture of violent crime and according to the UN poverty is the main obstacle for development. At a time like this selling of almost all the state assets, privatisation of public services, from schools, hospitals to all the airports, mean that forgotten in the squabbles the poor and dehumanized Maldivian people are unable to get access to basic services needed for living a dignified human life. Therefore the Parliament constituting of members elected by those people to represent them trying to stop the government is an invaluable decision supported by the majority of the Maldivian people.
However the government from president to his newly elected Attorney General are accusing the Parliament of trying to sabotage their power once again. The Bill that requires Parliament scrutiny where the sales of state assets are concerned led to the resignation of the Cabinet in the first round of the discussions. This time the same Bill before getting adopted the; President on national TV went short of saying the big no he has in store, and declared that the opposition dominated Parliament manipulates the Law to their advantage and therefore he will do whatever he wants. This is hardly democratic practise. With this kind of mindset the actions of the President taken so far from the arrest of opposition MP’s to taking them to custody by using the military is leaving the Maldivian people completely disillusioned in party politics and the word democracy. The Maldivian people are losing their trust in the newly established political system and its first multi-party elect government.
Trying to adopt rouge forms of capitalism and that also fast paced in a society where geographical, historical and cultural identity of the economic system has led to a stable way of life within the communities, is it really the best way forward? The economic ideologies of the current government can only be described as far-fetched.
Not only are the Parliament and Maldivian people marginalised from the governing process, but it increasingly looks like the deals whether it’s privatisation or selling of state assets to international organisations we have never heard of and the few of those whose names we can see on the world-wide web, they as banned in developed countries for engaging in boiler room scams. Deals involving state assets and investments are all done behind closed doors by the few inexperienced loyalists that the President relies heavily on to manage the country.
To ignore this will have disastrous consequences for the Maldivian people and we are fools if we do not think of the country and the people beyond the MDP and President Nasheed’s 5 year term. Therefore no matter what the Attorney General or the President say or do to advance their intentions, we appeal to the Parliament and the Maldivian people to not let them have their way.

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