Our Opportunist Mentality
Three decades of having had to live a life of subsistence, begging and borrowing and stealing, has made the average Maldivian something of a special breed of opportunists. The biggest problems of being the opportunists that we are is that we have lost trust in each others ability to make informed, unbiased and, most importantly, uncorrupted decisions. So there is a very stale air of distrust in the public.
Take the current race to the throne of power; the presidential race. Many have told me that the Republican Party, headed by Gasim, is the only hope of bringing down Gayyoom. Whenever someone says that to me I frown as I try to wipe the image of Gayyoom as an over-sized blood sucking leech and Gasim, with a mad-jail-warden-type grin, poking a pitchfork.
Now, I know I've lashed out angrily and stated that I would even vote a doormat if I had to but Gayyoom will never get my vote. This does not mean I'm going to vote Gasim (not that he's a doormat). No. But there are reasons I would not vote for Gayyoom and my rant was aimed at those who don't see why we should not. Most of us, I assume, want to dethrone him but many want to do so at any cost. The primary reasoning behind this being; let's just get the bugger out of office even if we had to elect a far more incompetent fool and deal with the consequences later. Right!
On the surface all this looks like a reaction from a sickened and fed-up public. The reality though is far more interesting for someone like me. It looks like it is the distrust of the public by the public that is fueling this sort of do-or-die mentality. After all, if the public votes him out, democratically - the way it should be - then why should we be worried? Why should we put our money on someone, in this case Gasim, assuming that only he can do the job. If we, the voting public, simply do not vote Gayyoom, then we would have achieved our goal of removing him.
But we just cannot trust ourselves to do that, can we? There are those of us who still see him as something of a demigod. And we need someone with money to corral those voters who's votes have a price tag. Which is probably a large number of voters. The fear is that any time we can become the greedy opportunist - playing our game under the table for short-term gains.
So, it looks like we're in a very tight spot - unable to move anywhere because every turn we take it's our own butt that's staring in our faces. Who else do we have to blame for all this except ourselves?
As for me, well, I know who will get my vote and it won't be because he's more capable of dethroning Gayyoom. As far as I know, Gayyoom doesn't stand a chance as long as we don't vote him and to do that we need not vote Gasim just because he's got the pitchfork - vote for him if you think he has a better plan for our future.
M | August 27, 2008 11:09 AM | Reply
totally agree. maldivians r just left with choosing lesser of evils than a piece of hope.
u got my vote. simon for prez 2013! sí se puede!
thadu | August 27, 2008 11:41 AM | Reply
couldn't agree more! we have been living our lives for so long "begging and borrowing and stealing". and trusting one over the other is unimaginably difficult. who of the candidates are sincere? who could bring better changes? who could bring an end to the miserable life that we are living? could it be Anni? Dr.Hassan? Ibra? Qasim?
the main thing we need to do is get rid of Gayyom. And yes, if we do not vote him, then he would not be elected. But is it simple as that? There is a good number of people who would vote still vote him, and who knows how many votes he would 'steal'. That mentioned, with all the divisions in the opposition, Gayyoms chance of winning the election is ever increasing, isn't it? And so there is a need why the public need to back a particular candidate out of all, and there might be a good reason why many are grouping with Qasim?
Imported Intelligence | August 27, 2008 12:12 PM | Reply
If my vote was to decide who wins the election, it wont be Maumoon!
Some of us are having difficulty deciding who is going to be good for Maldives, rather than for themselves personally.
You are right, I don't trust enough of my fellow countrymen to make a well reasoned choice. There are many who fear the challenge of the unknown.
Maldiveshealth | August 27, 2008 3:05 PM | Reply
Money talks. It has and it always will. And money wins. It has and it always will.
No no . It is not what i say. Its what all are saying. All need money. All want money. And its never enough.
Hope?
Ill leave that to others.
a | August 27, 2008 6:33 PM | Reply
Thadu,
- If we want to remove Gayoom, what we need to do is not to vote for him
- To get elected he needs a 'minimal over 50%' of the votes
- Whether we divide this 'minimal over 50%' of the votes among 1 or more candidates, Gayoom will not be elected.
This is based on the constitution.
I don't think given options we should replace Gayoom for the sake of replacement. One's current feeling of Gasim's electability is not a very morally acceptable way of doing this. It is us who will vote for him. It is us who will vote for another. It is not as though Gasim already has over 50% votes secured.
Improted intelligence | August 27, 2008 11:55 PM | Reply
I have been traveling around the country in recent weeks. I am a photographer, among other things and have been busy freelancing.
I was in Thinadhoo and Ungoofaaru for the DRP campaign trips; not part of their contingent.
What I saw in these places was very distressing and deeply dissapointing. A couple of day prior to the DRP campaign trip I saw several people gather and discuss the currnt political climate in the country. It made me believe that Thinadhoo was going to be one place where DRP would lose the popular vote. But what I saw on the day Maumoon arrived in the island changed my mind. There I recognised atleast a dozen people at the jetty who had voiced their political displeasure at DRP just a couple of days earlier. Now they were waving blue flags and shouting pro-DRP slogans. From all I could see, their emotions were genuine that day as well as 2 days earlier! If this was an indication of the voting results, I cannot trust my countrymen to do even what they believe as right!
The scenes were repeated in Ungoofaaru. In the pouring rain, Maumoon received the kind of support only a Hollywood superstar would. And, no longer surprising, this support was from both pro and anti Maumoon corners!
What hypocrisy, I said to myself. But then again they themselves fear reprisal should they show any displeasure......they are themselves fearful that Maumoon would remain in power come November.
The change that we seek is in the hands of the public.........sadly, what I have witnessed does not give me a lot of confidence that the public is determined enough to see the changes through.
Imported intelligence,
We've a long way to go, don't we? We need a mentality reformatting. Thanks for that comment. It was highly revealing if indeed what you saw was what you saw.
tickeld pink | August 28, 2008 2:27 AM | Reply
love the image you've portrayed of both maumoon and gasim. it added more drama and dimension to what i already had...maumoon with the seemingly docile first lady; gasim and the pitchfork with the first ladies, all of them throttling each other in the fight to be the one to assist gasim to help wield the pitchfork, quite chaotic and hilarious, me thinks...the presidential palace, might finally have all its rooms occupied with the potential first ladies.
subcorpus | September 13, 2008 10:32 AM | Reply
one more political article to read on the net these days ...
but ur article is way more better than most ...
and asks an important question ...
i wish people on the swings/joalifathis near the beach in the islands in outer atolls would read this blog ...