One of the SAARC countries that we share membership with; Bhutan introduced a concept called Gross National Happiness in an attempt to show commitment to making the country democratic and free and most of all in an attempt to make their citizens happy by adopting the democratic governing process. Maldives similarly embraced democracy a few years ago and the people decided to change a 30 year old Presidency in the pursuit of happiness. It’s being two years since Maldives under went the transition and bringing happiness to the people looks like the last thing on the minds of the leaders of the first multi-party elect government.
Socio economic struggles of the people are at an all time low. Maldives dived 30 places down the world corruption index. Crimes including murder are widespread, while suppression of freedom and attacks sponsored by the security forces including both the Police and the Military puts a permanent hold on freedom of expression and association of all forms.
The 200 or so inhabited island communities and the people struggle with fear rising from daily murders and crimes committed out of economic desperation. Failure to deal with crimes put people’s lives in permanent danger while job cuts exercised by the government keeps exacerbating the desperate social situation.
Hard hit by economic and social crisis there are many people expressing a longing towards bringing back the much loved former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom who lost by a small margin; back to power. Despite of promises of a better next year by the President the people exercise a permanent blame on falling for the alliance of political parties that got them to vote for MDP and then break away, to do nothing except engage in the blame game of how they were hoodwinked by MDP and Nasheed. It seems that the Maldivian people that lost confidence in the promises made by the MDP and Nasheed during the Presidential campaign and the repeated empty promises have nothing else to do but suffer helplessly. Year after year their desperate call for help fall on deaf ears and disappointed they see no way out under the current administration that is resorting to autocracy in every decision they make.
Unemployed, economically desperate, daily stabbing and murders, and waiting for the change they voted to take place over two years have led to unhappy communities in Maldives. Small scale business men including shopkeepers are murdered for money on a daily basis. Foreign workers are stabbed and killed for small amounts of cash and minute things like their mobile phones. Failure to catch the perpetrators led to a permanent mistrust on the Maldives Police force and further failures by the legal system to deliver justice means the people have lost faith in the legal system too.
If gross national happiness is to be measured in the Maldives in Bhutan style, the current Maldives government failed to make the people happy big time. Maldives experiment with democracy had proved to be a very unhappy experience. There is no hope for stopping the country’s downward spiral under the first democratic multi-party elect government.
Political parties and the rivalry between the major parties are blamed by many people over the social crisis. A small population of three hundred thousand is deeply divided in the quest for power by ambitious individuals and parties that fail to put the people’s happiness and national interest over winning the upcoming local election and the 2013 Presidential election. The ambitions of the President and his party to secure those elections one way or the other mean making the people happy and attending to their desperate needs is the last thing on the President’s mind. Every Policy and act of the government is motivated by an obsession of increasing the loyalist base and increasing the party membership and serving only those that demonstrate their loyalty. In the process, corruption, nepotism and cronyism have squandered and claimed the democratic essence of the Constitution, many times the President undermining the Constitution to engage in dictatorial decisions. The newly established Constitution keeps getting amended and undermined by the legal system on a daily basis headed by the Supreme Court bench hand-picked by the President.
Maldives only can be described as a country where all hell is let loose and political greed of the governing party and the agendas of the rest of the politicians mean the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness the Maldivian people worked so hard for through democratic reform had failed. Maldives has become a disaster zone, claimed by anarchy and ruled by a failed state. God knows how long we will have to grapple with this state of anarchy and social crisis!!
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