:: Dhivehi Observer :: Peoples Press ::

MDP support grows in the atolls as Gayyoom breaks election rules

DO international editor - Michael O'Shea, 25 November 2004

The reform movement based in Maldives and overseas is now a powerful political force in the important People's Majlis elections due on Friday 31 December 2004. Led by the Maldivian Democratic Party, the reformists have deliberately avoided basing themselves around a single strongman or new potential dictator. This is a revolutionary change in political consciousness for Maldivians.

Apart from personal, business and legal harassment, in February and August the reformists and their families faced two full-scale attacks by Gayyoom's small unofficial Baathist party and the NSS. Gayyoom has beaten, raped and tortured reformist leaders and their families, and throughout the atolls the president and his disgraced brother Minister of Atolls Abdullah Hameed are loathed with equal intensity. Gayyoom no longer attends public functions in Male'. He moves around the capital with his bodyguards in luxury vehicles hidden behind tinted glass, and often sleeps under guard at Arah, one of his private resorts just north of Male'.

The lack of resort and fisheries development in the heavily populated south and north of the country has become a crisis. Young Maldivians are angry about the opportunities they see slipping by, and they understand that Gayyoom's Baathists are to blame. The level of corruption in the country is obvious to everybody. Island officials are facing angry protests and public contempt for Gayyoom with his endless petty regulations and instructions.

The newly-appointed speaker of the remnants of special constitutional majlis, president's brother-in-law Abbas Ibrahim is seeking re-election in southern Huvadhu atoll, which he has supposedly represented in the majlis for the last five years. In the past, with Gayyoom controlling voters and simply throwing away votes he didn't like and replacing them with his own prepared paper, it has been a simple task for his selected cronies to fill any seat they want in the majlis. Ignorant men like Abbas Ibrahim think the islanders are their slaves and unworthy of even a visit, and members like him have been able to hold their seats despite arrogant disregard for the electorates.

Abbas once described himself as a bear, but this week he was exposed as a weasel in bear's clothing when his campaigners began circulating the false rumour in Huvadhu that their candidate was actually a member of the Maldivian Democratic Party.

There can be no greater compliment for any political party than when their opposition claims to have joined them. After only twelve months of formal existence, the MDP has a potent and respected reputation in the islands. It won the elections for the special majlis in 2004 and has the dominant political presence in Male' - Gayyoom sneaking around incognito is proof of that. Only the NSS sustains Gayyoom's presence in capital, and now the MDP is poised to take control of the rest of the country after the People's Majlis elections.

Although the MDP was founded in late 2003, the reform movement itself has been long-standing. Most of the complaints and arguments filling websites, email boxes and diplomatic bags for the last few years, were fully enunciated in Maldives by leading reformists in 1990. Gayyoom crushed those peaceful meetings and writers with lengthy prison sentences, torture and NSS intimidation. Before the Internet, it was easy for the dictator to hide his crimes from international observers.

Practised deceivers like the Maldives Foreign Minister Fathullah Jameel knew how to appeal to naive foreigners who shared the neo-colonial fantasy that Maldivians were different from the rest of the human race and their basic rights and needs could be comfortably ignored.

The British Minister of State for Trade, Investment and Foreign Affairs Douglas Alexander made a precise statement about the standards the British government is applying to the conduct of the Maldives elections. According to Minister Alexander, the election process must be:
1. 'Free and fair and in accordance with international standards';
2. Those 'who wish to stand for election are allowed to stand and campaign freely';
3. 'The electorate and the media are allowed to engage in open debate';
4. 'State resources are not used to favour some candidates more than others'.

British observers will already be aware that none of these requirements are being met. Gayyoom is breaking all these rules in the leadup to the election. Only the actual voting process and counting remain to be judged.