Bushry Column - I never ever voted for Gayyoom in Maldives:: Dhivehi Observer

Bushry Column - 7
I Never Ever Voted For Gayyoom!

By Mohamed Bushry , 10th July 2005 Bushry Column Archive

I was a kid when the country had a Presidential election in 1978. I remember listening to the results of the election on Radio Maldives. A young politician by the name of Maumoon Gayyoom was leading the election. Almost all the young people were extremely excited with the coming of a new and young president. The people had great aspirations and expectations. Since I was a kid I didn't share the political enthusiasm of the youth who seemed to be charged with adrenalin.

Maumoon won the election with over ninety percent of the votes. Most of those youth who celebrated Gayyoom's victory on that fateful day of 1978 are now middle-aged. The enthusiasm they showed on that day has vanished from their faces. Some of them are members or leaders of the opposition party (MDP). Many of the electorate seems to be disillusioned. Their expectations never materialized. It all seems like a distant dream now.

The first presidential election in which I was eligible to vote was held in 1993. By then Gayyoom had been in power for 15 years. That was the year I returned home after completing my first degree. Even before I became eligible to vote I was bothered by corruption and unfair politics. I started writing for Haveeru Daily in 1989.

When I went to vote in the presidential election in 1993 I had to answer a question that was crucial for the future of my country. Did I endorse Gayyoom to be our president for the next five years?

As I queued up at the polling station I probably didn't realize the enormity of the question in front of me. Nevertheless I slowly walked up to the polling officer, took my ballot paper and walked in to the booth. I kept the ballot paper on the table and steadied my pen. My mind was blank, except for one thing! My heart and my mind said the same thing. All my limbs agreed. I had to put a cross behind Gayyoom's name.

That was the start of a series of "No" votes that I rendered for Gayyoom. My answer was that I did not endorse Gayyoom to be the president of Maldives for the next five years. I had many reasons for giving a “No” vote. It would take many gigabytes of this website to list all those reasons. Incredibly the list of reasons has quadrupled in the years that followed. But still Gayyoom is in power and he continues to win every presidential election with over ninety percent of the votes.

The country is undergoing tremendous political rehabilitation. The people are being granted rights that had been withheld for decades. Are we to thank Gayyoom for that? I certainly would not thank the incumbent president for any of the political reforms that is taking place in the Maldives right now. The true pioneers and leaders of these reforms are the ordinary people. Of course we have to thank many political activists and even writers and dissidents who stood firm in the face of harassment and intimidation.

I'm proud to say that, in my life, I never voted for Maumoon Gayyoom and I certainly don't intend to change that position in the future. I believe that the current regime is a spent force. The many u-turns and blunders that have become so common are a sign of that. Of course they still hold enormous powers. They could still imprison dissident writers and make life like hell for reformists. But like all Maldivians I have watched some Hindi films. Every Indian movie has a fahu-thalhaalun-gandu. We are currently seeing the fahu-thalhaalun-gandu of our generation. The villains may seem to win, but when the credits start rolling, it would be the hero who would walk towards the sunset with a contented heart and soul. The people of Maldives deserve that.