When white collar criminals rule a nation, stability is certain..

Many would wonder why I chose to write on such a bold topic. I have always been an admirer of freedom of expression within the limitations set out in the Islamic Sharee'aa. I am not a scholar or qualified enough to debate with religious fanatics and extremists who are propagating malicious acts and barbarism in the name of Islam. Indeed, Islam is for all the time and all the people and authentic Islamic teachings encourages trusting people of all faiths (except they attack your country, your family or yourself) in fact, Islam allows us to attack people of other faiths only in the hostile situations where they attack you. 

I am not in position to defend democratic system but I do know that democratic aspirations takes you in a state of mind that you feel you are a part of larger community rather than isolated in a cage with your lips are stitched with an iron fist. Many so called democrats today are a bi-product of a totalitarian regime whom so blatantly ruled this lovely nation for almost 3 decades. Are we idiots to expect democratic governance and good practice from bunch of those white collar criminals. 

Torture, fear, uncertainty and mysterious deaths, abductions and forceful disappearances are key strategies used by the autocratic-totalitarians to silent and keeping the larger community specially intellectuals from harsh criticism on various actions and failures of a government. 

Now, if you carefully analyse the incidents of past year, you would notice that no one seems care much knowing fact that your life is at stake if your dare to open your mouth. How many lives we lost due to gang related violence? How many incidents of drugs and alcoholic related offences, most importantly how many controversies that can easily be portrayed as selling our sovereignty as a nation, the so called "taka taka" tag. One broad example could be Speacial Economic Zone (SEZ) where  foreign investors can acquire land plots for 99 years. This is not a bad idea given the economic viability and inflow of foreign exchanges. what concerns me most is fact that when MDP led government leased out Male International Airport to GMR for 25 years, the uproar against the decision was immense but nothing other than a large scale manipulation of truth by the so called democrats. Most agonizingly, a prominent minister today, made a public plea for boycotting Goods and Service Tax (GST), only with intention of overthrowing a perfectly legitimate government. 

Today, the very people who opposed the economic packages introduced by the MDP led government is enjoying large sums and filling up their coffins as much as possible. I am not particularly bitter about overthrowing of MDP led government but I am deeply concerned about losing hard earned democratic achievements. 

Make wise choices – Local Council Election

The following article was written by me some two years ago. I have cut pasted the original contents just to remind you that what I then predict was exactly the situation we are facing today.

http://ismailhassanmanik.blogspot.com/2010/12/make-wise-choices-local-council.html

The upcoming Local Council Election will be country’s first ever multi-party Local Council election and yet one of the most competitive political rapture in the entire history of this lovely nation. The campaign has already boomed and some candidates are doing their campaigns heavily. It is believed that this Local Council Election will be very competitive and exhilarating.

In the modern day of politics, the most influential components of a campaign is how much he/she is willing to spend and the popularity among the people. Consequently, money is one of the most coherent factors of a campaign. In a civilized community, people choose based on policies and quality of the candidates and thereby the supporters will give donor and subsequently it is people’s money. But in our community, it is more like buying votes with peanuts taking advantage out of innocence of the ordinary people rather than winning with genuine support from the people.

What we decide today may impair our political recognition in the future. It has to be someone who is really committed to bring political and economic reform to our community; in fact he must be capable of doing it. It is not always necessary that the most influential figure is appropriate for the post.

I, therefore urge you to decide your choice based on vision, capability, and drive for economical, social and political development. Let there be no doubt that you made right choices by choosing someone who possess a good track record.

United We Stand - Divided We Fall

Dear Thimarafushee Council Members, 

Wish you a very Happy New Year in advance. 

Thank you for your warm welcome and close relationships kept during my short stay in Thimarafusshi. 


We are deeply concerned and regretted to tell you that you need to be a cohesive unit in order to achieve your targets during your term as councellors. 

Together we work, we will definitely  accomplish the most arduous tasks.  

Thank you and best wishes. 

Make wise choices – Local Council Election

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The upcoming Local Council Election will be country’s first ever multi-party Local Council election and yet one of the most competitive political rapture in the entire history of this lovely nation. The campaign has already boomed and some candidates are doing their campaigns heavily. It is believed that this Local Council Election will be very competitive and exhilarating.

In the modern day of politics, the most influential components of a campaign is how much he/she is willing to spend and the popularity among the people. Consequently, money is one of the most coherent factors of a campaign. In a civilized community, people choose based on policies and quality of the candidates and thereby the supporters will give donor and subsequently it is people’s money. But in our community, it is more like buying votes with peanuts taking advantage out of innocence of the ordinary people rather than winning with genuine support from the people.

What we decide today may impair our political recognition in the future. It has to be someone who is really committed to bring political and economic reform to our community; in fact he must be capable of doing it. It is not always necessary that the most influential figure is appropriate for the post.

I, therefore urge you to decide your choice based on vision, capability, and drive for economical, social and political development. Let there be no doubt that you made right choices by choosing someone who possess a good track record.

Please visit the link to see the details of the Dredging, Reclamation and Shore Protection works for Th.Thimarafushi Airport Development and Land Reclamation Project:

http://isles.egov.mv/Project/Index.aspx?lid=1&pid=1056

I am glad to announce that after a very busy period of six months, finally I am here to share my view and ideas on various economic, social and political issues in the Maldives. It is great pleasure for me to reinvent my desire to share with you all. Insha Allah, very soon I will post an article that portray why the government have precariousely decided to impose a salary cap by deducting some percentage from civil servents salary. Please have your say on it and until then bye.. thank you

Dear Friends,

I am really sorry for not updating my blog for a long period of time. It was nothing but I was too busy and obsessed with my job.

Hopefully, I will resume blogging again at the beginning of June 2010, and thereby I will try my best to share my ideas and thoughts about various political, economical and social issues in around the the country.

Until then bye...

Thanking you,

Ismail Hassan Manik

Finally, verdict declared…. Umar Naseer a sore loser…

We have been fighting for justice since the day Umar Naseer closed down the party office in August 2009. Since then, we were denied the access to the party office, though we did our best to solve the situation peacefully and silently without any media hype. But Umar Naseer did all he can to demoralize us and abolish the party at any cost.

He then made a cosmetic council and decided to abolish the party and did what he thought was legitimate. We were wondering and so confident that we would win the case under any circumstances as he was doing everything against the code of conduct of IDP. We filed a case against cosmetic decision of Umar Naseer and co in the Election Commission with all necessary documents to prove that it was totally illegimate.

Finally, Election Commission declared its verdict and now its final and Umar Naseer has to go to the court if he wishes to challenge the decision of the Election Commission. We are sure that, Umar Naseer won’t challenge because, he has already lost the battle with us and he has nothing to do with IDP. Thus, he himself proven that he is a sore loser.

Umar Naseer - a courageous coward....

I have been in the political fore-front in the Maldives for last five years and most interestingly, I was following someone, whom I thought could be a real leader. Yes, the president of IDP, Mr. Umar Naseer, I would now call another dictator born.

Last few months have been really controversial as there was big media hype between MR. Umar Naseer and some of the council members. It was really confusing and IDP was inactive as a political party unlike once it was. The conflict began when Mr. Umar Naseer closed down the party office without the consent of the council and declared he is the president and therefore, it is up to him to decide when and where to open the office. This in particular is totally against the IDP’s regulation. Therefore, the claim is totally illegitimate.

He then publicly said the party will be abolished and did some of the most foolish mistakes ever a man can do. Thus, he wasn’t successful in any of the tactics he has so far used. Two weeks I was informed that, there is a presidential plea in the IDP office and those people who do not sign on the plea will be considered as unsupportive and thereby he will opt those two names for the council in order to fill the void left due to resignation of some of the council members due to various reasons. Again, it was totally against the regulation and a member can be temporarily elected into the council only with clear majority.

This week has sent a letter to Election Commission saying that, the party council unanimously decided to abolish the party. Now the question is, how could it be a legitimate decision where the half of the council members are totally against it and did not attended the council meeting? It was just a cosmetic decision and its one of his conspiracies he thinks would be effective to abolish the party.

I’ve made a call to one of the election officials and he was informed about the situation well and I am more than confident that, Mr. Umar Naseer will be a looser and a courageous coward. Legal actions are not very far from the consideration as I am now discussing with my lawyer about the issue.

Do we really need to be concerned about when there is nothing mentioned about our island in the budget 2010.

On 5th December 2009, My mobile phone made me woke up earlier than all the days a text message from a friend of mine. I was so eager to read the message as it came very early in the morning thought that it might be a good message. When I went through the message it really made me laugh because it was all about a message which has been passing phone to phone about 2010 budget. It took moment to think and understand what exactly trying to say in the message.

To me, with my limited knowledge, budget is something that should reflects things that can be done or possible within the financial year by not depending the loans but rather with the help of governement income. In this case, I am not at all surprised to see that there was nothing mentioned in the budget about our island.

In the past, budgets were prepared by mentioning many projects to be carried out in various isands with the mere hope of getting loans from financial organization and as a grant aid. Consequently these unsaid wirtten statement were considered as a promise. Often the case is that, at the end of the year, none but few project were materialized and while others were left with nothing. Further, the this practice was a cheap technique which have been using the old regime in order to gain the political advantages by manipulating the the right picture. For example, You go through the budgets of last 10 years from 2008, most definitely what you will see is simply written projects rather than materialized ones. Let's take the case of our island, For how many years has it been mentioned in the budget to be carried out the sewerage system with help of Kuwait Fund which originally started recently only. Let alone not this example, the case of reclamation project is one of the most evident example. So how many other islands were there simply neglected in a similar fashion by simply mentioning in the budget projects to be done.

I would not call these things anything other than false promises a cheap techinique to gain the political advantage from our people by making them day dream.

I would like call all thimarafushians that, never ever get carried away so easily, there is no harm even if nothing mentioned in the budget and mentioning something in the budget won't guerentee you anything. Consider the past examples, we brought this coalition led government not to repeat the same old mistakes that we were truely neglected. If not what is the difference between having an autocratic regime and a democratic one.

The annual net income of our country is around MRF 7 billion and out of that 5 billion are paid to to government employees and with the remaining 2 billion we had to manage all the other things including infrastructure projects. thus, what we can do is to increase our productivity rather than simply staying back at home and expecting governement will do everything. This is a free market economy and everything will depends on demand and supply. Take the example of Singapore and her condition in 1970's and now and have a vision in our mind and be faithful, Insha Allah, our faith will pay back the dividends we deserved.

My friend Mr. Assad called me some days ago and asked me to come to his office for some important reasons. When I get into his office, he asked me to write some letter to the some of the government authorities about various issues about thimarafushee. To be honest, I was very reluctant to involve any of such things as I was not treated well and fairly, specially during election time. If you ask me thousand times, I would say, I was right and I never did any sin. But as it was purely about thimarafushi, I couldn't ask much I wrote all three letters and given to him instantly.

Again last week he called me and said that the NGO's are reluctant to sign on the paper and they don't want to pressure the government at any cost. What a ridiculous attitude is this? but on the way, Mr. Musthafaa does not want lose a single second without giving pressure to the governemt about the commitments. As an example he took Guraidhoo and their people's bravery when it comes to development of their beloved island.

What i see from our island is opposit. So better you guys to stop your mouth and do something practical and show it to our people.

An important meeting .....

I was called for a meeting with Mr. Mohamed Musthafa, one of the MP's and elected from our constituent. When I get into his office along with some of the close friends from island, I was not sure what was schedule and what was decided to talk in the meeting. Anyway it was interesting and a fruitfull meeting although we had to wait more than an hour out in the lobby waiting for him to call up our turn.

When sat in the meeting room, immediately he started talking about the island and various development activities and what was the motive of the motive of that meeting. I took my turn and waste no time questioning him about various issues like the promised mega pack development project which was signed back in May 2009. He has shown me the agreement signed between the so called investor and in every sense it look like a fake agreement. Initially, it was declared that the so called investor is an Italian based consortium or whatever, but in the agreement it was clearly mentioned that it was a UK registered one.

In my next turn, I asked him something related to legitimacy of his candidacy due to ongoing cases in the lower courts and supreme court. He grossly ruled out all the cases by saying all the cases are all about a company and not himself and hence he is not liable for it.

My next question was about his popularity and I told him that his popularity is going down due to his own cause, as he made as customary practice to talk about Gayyoom in the parliament even if the issue is not at all related to Gayyoom and his old powerhouses. At the end, he agreed to minimize it.

Six members signed a letter...

The six members who stand against the idea of abolishing the party have signed a letter to file a case against Umar Naseer at Maldives Police Service and Election Commission. A meeting was held last night and out of six, five members were attended took the decision.

The members also decided to contact Mr. Hussain Zaheen, one of the council members before registering the case, as he made a request by saying to grant him some more days to make a decision whether or not he should make a public plea on this issue.

Updates coming soon.....

Six members from IDP council decided to sue Umar Naseer

The six members who stand against the idea of abolishing IDP have unanimously decided to take legal action against Mr. Umar Naseer for closing the party office last Friday. The members were angered about the contents in the interview given to Haveeru Daily by Mr. Umar Naseer on 1^st of September 2009, Tuesday.

Further details will be published progressively.....

Military rules only follow dictators. “Mr. Umar must behave ethically”

It has been weeks of speculation that there is conflicts between Islamic Democratic Party (IDP) council members and party’s President with regard to the future of the party. Since, the speculation began; there was a council meeting held with the purpose of getting approval from the council to abolish the party. After, a long discussion, the council decided to go for a vote and only three votes went for and six, as much as double went against.

However, the council unanimously agreed that the IDP, President can carry out the activities which he was involving in connection with the re-election of Thimarafushee Constituent.

Against the decision and will of majority of the council members, Mr. Umar Naseer has been continuously trying to grip with his decision and giving his views on different medias by saying he will take the issue into the next congress. We as council members, tried our best to convince that he is wrong and it won’t be ethical to go on with his decision to abolish the party, especially being as a President. But rather he can willingly go any political party he wishes after his resignation. However, one must know that, a party is not a single person and it is a collective entity, and he does not have any right to decide on his own.

What more interesting is that, the members who are supporting his decision are his staff members simultaneously IDP council members as well. So, one should not wonder why he is saying majority is not with the outcry of his resignation.

There are many reasons why some of the prominent figures of IDP council are resisting against the idea of abolishing the party.

1- IDP was established for the purpose of promoting certain democratic values in parallel to the Islam.

2- IDP has been playing a very effective role in making the government accountable.

3- IDP was not ready to contest last presidential election, and he Mr. Umar Naseer convinced to the council by saying, “If don’t contest this election, it would be a huge blow for the party and IDP should not be measured in line with other small parties, rather IDP is stronger than the rest and we council members must be responsible for such downfalls if not agreed.” For that reason, we the council members agreed. But one should not measure the strength of IDP by counting the number of votes what Mr. Umar Naseer acquired in last presidential election.

4- Unlike last presidential election, this parliamentary election does not show you anything other than a fight in between a democratically led government who was trying its best to succeed as much number of seats as they could, while a failed group of corrupted leaders who were trying their best to win most number of seat with the help their influence and huge sums of money. Therefore, comparing the effort and money put into the election, the results are not bad. Because, IDP spent just peanuts when compare to the rivals.

5- Independent members of the IDP council (who are not Mr. Umar Naseer’s Staffs) does not believe that the political arena in the Maldives is divided into two, and those members are confident that IDP does have even a bigger and better role to play in the current political grounds.

6- According to party regulation, party cannot be abolished without the will of 2/3 of total members registered and the decision could only be taken by an extra-ordinary congress that represents 2/3 of total party members. How on Earth, it could be done, without amending the party regulation and a call for a congress should be decided by the party council with clear majority.

Due to the reasons above, it is almost impossible to abolish IDP that easily even though Mr. Umar Naseer is determined to do it. I would say that again he is going to ended up with a great disappointment like in the past.

At last, as a fond lover IDP and a council member, I urged Mr. Umar Naseer to resign as soon as possible for the betterment of his political career and us as well. Military rules only follow dictators.....