Rain or Shine, We must Avoid the Void

Source: Mohamed Nasheed on his blog www.mnasheed.com

I was disappointed with the parliament sessions held yesterday and today.

Parliament Yesterday

The whole day yesterday was spent debating and discussing a report from a parliament committee on emoluments of speaker, deputy speaker, Chief Justice, other Supreme Court justices and members of the independent institutions.

Neither the report of the public finance committee of the parliament, nor the exercise of allocating emoluments itself, was worth a full day's debate. To exacerbate the day, the debate itself was largely tangential to the issue before the parliament.

However, the Speaker did not want to bring the members back from the wilderness. He spent some cool hours on the chair knowing fully well, what was happening in the chamber was not what he had intended to see through the day's agenda.

The result was this: tabling the Presidential Elections Bill had to be put on hold - unnecessarily - for another day.

Parliament Today

Although we were lucky to start debate on the presidential elections bill, after losing first half hour of the day today, to continue with yesterday's debate on salaries and emoluments, the session was largely no better than yesterday's.

Everyone knew that we were losing valuable time. Everyone knew that we were all under pressure to deliver.

There were repeated pleas to cut the debate short, reduce the number of speakers, keep the focus on the subject of the bill, prevent recurrence of same talking points, and disallow irrelevant or lengthy points of order, which often were just out of turn interventions to make an unwelcome impression.

The pleas for a productive day fell on deaf ears, and some members seemed to have enjoyed finding a way to pass time during otherwise cumbersome fasting hours of the midday.

We could see the self-acclaimed Thomas Jefferson of the Maldives constitution attempting to drill democratic definitions into our heads. We could see the self assumed dean of parliament standing up to put the country on a fairer path. We could see the "genuine" reformers trying to show how genuinely they wished the people of this country every good.

It was nothing but a show of useless political grandstanding with no relevant aim or cause in sight - long live our new found values of democracy and tolerance.

Election Reaction

All of this is apparently a bitter reaction from some quarters to the announcement by the Elections Commission yesterday to hold the first round of presidential elections tentatively on 4th October, if all relevant electoral bills were done with inside this week.

Somehow, some members, or rather, some parties, feel that their candidates need more time to campaign. If their candidates do not get time to campaign to their hearts fullest, the elections cannot be held democratically, or the freeness or fairness of those elections would be thrown into serious doubt.

What we saw in parliament yesterday and today was nothing but another futile attempt to stalemate the elections process and checkmate those who are trying to push things through.

I say that it is yet another attempt to torpedo the process and the progress, for a reason. I have seen this attempt made several times at every important juncture. It is all in the script.

When the constitution was passed, several challenges were in built during the last stages thinking they would not be possible to be overcome. The appointment of the prosecutor general was to be disrupted, and the selection of members to the elections commission, were never to materialize, by raising the bars high on short-listed candidates. The same has been lobbied for the Supreme Court, now. The passage of all relevant bills was to be another important roadblock.

Somehow, the forces hell bent on arresting the forward movement under the constitution had to succumb to the forces equally converged on pushing the process through, whatever the cost.

Last Constipation

Now what we see is the one last attempt to hijack the electoral process before parliament loses control over the process. The attempt is to see if the process could collapse if things were held back just a little longer on the bills. So that, the elections commission could have no choice but to confirm their inability to deliver on the already conditional promises tied to the presence of key election legislations.

In the name of fairness of elections, somehow, some have been trying to take this country towards a constitutional vacuum. My question is why take such a huge risk - and to laugh at whom, except own selves? Why spit in the air, face up?

That is not helping a nation, begin a period of transformation or democratization. That is hijacking the country's democratic processes and transitional aspirations through nice talk and populist rhetoric.

Frustration Excursions

We do not attend parliament to listen to reactions to frustrating political compromises inked together the night before by some parliamentarians, or the unpopular presidential campaigns held by some candidates the last time they traveled to the country's atolls.

We do not attend parliament to waste the best part of the day there listening to some creative politicians taking maximum advantage of the nightly parliament broadcasts so that the may communicate confusion and encourage chaos to the larger electorate.

Hey, I am the best, the most devout reformer of all - things must go my way or no way - if I am not involved in it, then it must not be democratic - are what echoes out of a session of parliament on an otherwise killing morning of a fasting month while the country awaits news that the elections bills are done.

Two days

Now we got two days, Wednesday and Thursday to finish the presidential elections bill and the general electoral rules bill. If need be, extra sessions must be held during the weekend as well to meet the target.

It is but our job to ensure that by Sunday morning, Elections Commission has their bibles with them: the Electoral Rules Act and the Presidential Elections Act, in addition to the Maldives constitution.

Come rain or shine, there is no other choice but to assist the Elections Commission and get this thing done with.

Unlike what the speaker has opined, or the self acclaimed Thomas Jefferson of the Maldives has proposed, I am inclined to believe what the MDP parliament group leader Afeef said.

According to him, work on the presidential elections bill does not need to be kept on hold until the general electoral rules bill is made into law just because each has cross references to the other, and each needs to be read with the other. In fact, the two bills need to be in the same committee now to be worked on together, and tied well to each other while ironing out any creases.

I am not sure why the Speaker or our self assumed Dean of parliament does not find the logic in that proposal. Perhaps, they have run out of ways to delay the process.

Selfish Gains

We can push this country through this process, only, if we do not care who takes the credit for our work, rise above our own self centered egos, cut our ties with positions we have entrenched on our own, start appreciating things from a more national perspective, and agree upon a win-win formula for all.

We came much later than our country did. The country would remain long after we are gone. There is no use, trying to engrave our footprints on it, with creative ethnocentric populism and self-centered political grandstanding. 

The Difference

They say that, the difference between politicians and statesmen is that politicians look at the next election, while statesmen look at the next generation.

This is our moment to be less of politicians and more of statesmen in our disposition, and in discharge of our responsibilities.