The Maldivian population is highly dispersed and landlocked in small islands with majority of the island population consisting of a few hundred. Isolated, they often express blind trust in the government of the day specially under MDP after the President stationed his political appointees in each and every inhabited island. This has become the way of survival and staying safe from the wrath of the political appointees of President Nasheed. The unquestionable councillors and officials in the public offices comprising of a handful, whatever they say, the people blindly listen to them and trust them.
In addition to this there is another major problem that prevents democracy prevailing in these isolated islands, making the islanders vulnerable victims of this government’s propaganda. There are no re-creational activities available and no forms of entertainment, in the 202 inhabited islands under the current government and the absence of public libraries mean; these isolated communities comprising of the majority of the Maldivian people usually channel themselves to the TV set in their sitting room, where most prefer to watch the never ending Indian serials or the only available local channel the government controlled public TV station. Even though the people that dwell in the Capital islands and live there have the benefit of public libraries, few private local TV and few such Radio Channels the majority of the population have no access to factual information to make their own judgment in matters that affect their lives.
Limiting the Maldivian people’s access in this manner helps the government of MDP to manipulate the public to their advantage. Once in a blue man when the politicians from the Capital visits usually on the eve of different elections, the people listen to what they have to say and put their blind faith in them.
The government owned media usually using foul mouthed activists like Reeko Moosa Manik spreads so much false propaganda; always diverting attention from them, they brainwash the people to become prejudiced.
Activists from the ruling party always one-sided take minute problems of a thirty year long Presidency while successfully avoiding to discuss the serious loopholes, criminal activities and serious cases of corruption that they themselves engage in on a daily basis.
I was watching Reeko Moosa the Head of MDP Parliament group rant for nearly an hour last night on a you tube video uploaded by the state TV. Often shaking from anger that even had me worrying, he was hurling abuse after abuse at the officials from former government that now resides in the main opposition parties and the Parliament. Although the interviewer wanted him to explain why this government is so stressed about the Parliament trying to scrutinise the sales of public companies and assets without answering the question; his mad rampage about the past continued. Hospitals, schools all the airports, the biggest tele-communication company Dhiraagu and every other company that we used to call our own were privatised within a matter of two years by the MDP administration and more are getting privatised by this government as we speak, however Reeko Moosa screams that the former government privatised everything, and used the money. He kept shouting about it without being able to mention the name of even one single company that has been sold by the former government. Had the previous government sold anything in their 30 year-long rule would there be anything left for this government to sell?
Reeko Moosa does not realise that companies and assets that they are selling in the last two years on a daily basis are there for them to sell because the previous government unlike them never engaged in selling everything we got for profit and pocket the money like the MDP government has done in a mad rampage.
Men like this that are using state media to spread the propaganda of the ruling party, when they scream about corruption and lack of discipline (as at one stage he did say the house that Ilyas Ibrahim had in Laamu Atoll was a massage parlour used to have sex with young girls) had left me lost for words.
It doesn’t go down very well when the ruling party use people like Reeko Moosa Manik to head their Parliamentary group and appear in front of the TV to spread such propaganda to the unsuspecting simple-minded outreach Maldivian communities. Apart from the man having no formal education and the fact that he was the film star, the Maldivian people across the country knows most famously for his sexual relations with most of the co-stars is a tragedy for MDP. When it comes to this man it is no longer a secret that his sexual relations with Mariyam Nisha one of his co-stars yielded to a child born out-of-wedlock. We all know how the poor woman to avoid the stigma is said to have dumped her newborn in an Indian orphanage from where she is still struggling to claim her child back but could not because the father have to sign the papers and Reeko Moosa is refusing to give a DNA test in order for the Police to confirm his parenthood of the child and give the signature this woman needs desperately.
Not to mention the case few months ago, how after he became the Head of the MDP Parliamentary group, his very own car was caught by the Police filled with alcohol and illegal drugs. Private affairs of people belonging to this government even though the cases are incriminating evidence that show what a criminal gang these people we are getting ruled by, are swept under the carpet on a daily basis while these same people go on the MDP claimed state TV and radio channels poking fingers at others without being able to raise a single case of corruption and criminality against those people.
The government of Mohamed Nasheed using such people as Reeko Moosa Manik and exploiting our state media is in breach of the Oath of office they took, including the President himself. The unjustified control and exclusive access to the state media exercised by the MDP government and their hoodlums who really belong behind bars is a shame on the Maldivian people who are silently watching and letting this happen.
We have to protect the Public from these people. The way the state media should work is it should present two sides of the story. How can truth prevail if the conflicting views are not represented on an equal footing.
The people who blindly believe the lies of the regime of MDP are also the most vulnerable people within our communities. Usually the radical grassroots consisting of young men prone to substance abuse, violence and crime see these people as role models and as a legitimate basis for engaging in illicit relations, violence, substance abuse and breaking of the law. The mentality that if people like Reeko Moosa and other high-profile officials of the MDP appointed by the President not only get away with sex scandals, alcohol and drug abuse but are able to appear in state media outlets as model citizens and face of the current government could be blamed for the explosion of crime and social problems under the MDP rule.
With this government we will definitely be exacerbating this culture of violence, crime, drug and alcohol abuse unless people like Reeko Moosa that abuse the law are put behind bars.
These people think it is a new rule that our Parliament is demanding scrutiny over their racketeering, money laundering, profiteering through the creation of hundred of offices, making of political appointees on a daily basis and most of all selling of state assets. In every democracy of the world the Executive of the government has to be transparent, accountable and answerable to the Parliament and also the people. Therefore the current government of Maldives should be answerable to the Parliament and the people and it is time we and the Parliament act and end this, even if it means one less MP for the MDP, or a new Defence Minister for MDP or a handful of new State Ministers for the MDP, or a new Councillor for the Capital or even a new President for Maldives.
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