MDP double standards

One of the reasons MDP may not have been able to draw on the considerable opposition to Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in post-Eavan Naseem Maldives is their own double standards.

When Hassan Saeed and co resigned from Gayoom's government MDP suporters, who had only the day before heckled them at a debate organised by the newspaper Haveeru, couldn't hold back their joy. But when Saeed's growing popularity became a threat, MDP members began to call for Saeed to publicly apologise for his actions while he was part of the regime, a demand they never bothered make on their own president and vice-president.

Mohamed Munavvar and Ibrahim Hussein Zaki in their time with Gayoom opposed all democratic reforms and, less than a week after police murdered inmates of Maafushi prison, supported the dictator, then also head of police, in his bid for a fifth term in office.

Accusations of corruption leveled at the two have never been answered satisfactorily and it should be noted that Munavvar is the architect of the flawed constitution currently taking so much resources and time to ammend. To my knowledge neither have said sorry in public for anything they've done while with Gayoom. After Sandhaanu Zaki dramatically shouted at Munavvar, at his MDP leadership campaign, that he was responsible for the online editor's years of torture and suffering, the former attorney was forced to come up with with a half-hearted explanation. Apparently, Gayoom forced him to do all the bad things he did in office, while he was fully responsible for all the good things. In a laughable early speech at an MDP rally Munavvar blamed Gayoom for the constitution but took the credit for himself for creating the law school.

Unlike the New Maldives trio, the Old Maldives duo did not resign from office. They joined MDP when they were sacked by Gayoom and had no other option.

When the two made their way into the inner workings of MDP, the party had an indisputable command over the vast majority of Maldivians. But under their power, that command has diminished, the party has lost many of the key persons who helped to set it up, and MDP today is a fragmented entity given to emulating Gayoom tactics on the populace of the Maldives. The latest, the ridiculous Arumaaz trips, are a case in point.

That MDP couldn't come up with a decent opposition figurehead of its own to lead Maldivians into a post-Gayoom era has meant they have over-relied on the dictator's discards, which may have cost the party irreparable damage.