Nothing can be worse that being ruled by Gayyoom and his misguided bunch of selfish thugs!

Many of my friends ask often ask me what I think of the new government. They accuse President Nasheed of giving senior positions to questionable characters such as Kerafa Naseem. I agree that there are areas that need rethinking, but I would never swap this regime with the previous regime of Gayyoom. I don’t care even if Anni makes Kerafa Naseem the Minster of Islamic Affairs. Nothing can be worse that being ruled by Gayyoom and his misguided bunch of selfish thugs.

When we ask this question there’s one very important point that we fail to consider. The new government is barely 30 days old. During those 30 days the new government has gone forward in leaps and bounds, but perhaps because of the speed of the changes, or perhaps due to some distractions such as appointing questionable characters to some posts, some of us fail to grasp the enormity of the changes coming to us.

Look at the efforts to decentralize governance. This is something that we have been asking for, but now that it is within our grasp, some of us are being fooled by DRP-sympathizers that this decentralisation is against the constitution and that it will not help our development. First of fall (as far as I understand) no decentralisation work will be done without consulting the Majlis. Some Gayyoom-sympathizers think that the constitution is open for interpretation according to their fancy and their needs.

I agree that some of the appointments to senior positions such as State Ministers are questionable appointments; but I believe that the general momentum and intensions of the new government are excellent. Does anyone realize that the new government has saved nearly 500 million Rufiyaa from the proposed budget for 2009, just on three items (i.e. Presidential Palace, Aarah and President’s Office). If Gayyoom was here, despite the hard financial times, we would have had to bear the responsibility of housing him in Theemuge and spending millions on Aarah and spending many more millions of the President’s Office. Put the corruption of his cronies and the deteriorating drugs crisis on top of that and this country would have been doomed if Gayyoom won the election.

Now that we have rid ourselves of the guy, we are perhaps condemning the new government for relatively minor things. I agree that there are areas that need rethinking, but I would never swap this regime with the previous regime of Gayyoom. I don’t care even if Anni makes Kerafa Naseem the Minster of Islamic Affairs. Nothing can be worse that being ruled by Gayyoom and his misguided bunch of selfish thugs.

Of course we need to comprehensively and effectively address the issue of gang violence. Only a few days ago a young man was slaughtered in broad daylight in Male’. The police haven’t established the motive for the murder, nor caught any suspects but many believe that most of these gang fights and murders are related to drugs and perhaps even prostitution. The new government needs also address the issue of releasing all political prisoners and putting all drug-related criminals into rehab instead of keeping them in jail.

The shortage of dollars in the market also needs to be addressed. Many analysts argue that the government should legislate that all bed-tax and red-rent needs to be paid by the resorts to the government, in us dollars instead of Rufiyaa. They argue that resort operators should also be asked to keep their revenue in local banks for at least 30 days before they could export the foreign currency to a foreign bank. Such steps could solve our drugs crisis and also help our banks and the overall business environment.

My answer to my friends and any other doubters is: give the new government a chance. I’m not saying that we should stop criticizing and start over-praising. But it has to be constructive criticism. This government will be thousand times better than the parasitic regime of Gayyoom. Let’s criticize the government but let’s also be realistic. I agree that there are areas that need rethinking, but I would never swap this regime with the previous regime of Gayyoom. I don’t care even if Anni makes Kerafa Naseem the Minster of Islamic Affairs. Nothing can be worse that being ruled by Gayyoom and his misguided bunch of selfish thugs.