A Mega Harbor for Thilafushi?

As announced on 20th May, the Government has decided to nationalize private harbors in Thilafushi. The move, which is intended to stop drug smuggling, will require implementing a mega project to develop a commercial harbor rivaling that in Male.

There are seven ports in Thilafushi developed by private investors, including MTCC, Apollo Group, Nalahiyaa Group, Villa Shipping, Cement Fihaara and Coastline. These ports constitute investments worth millions of rufiyaa and handle the major share of building material and hardware imported to the Maldives. The government now proposes to bring them under Maldives Ports Limited.

However, since these harbors are not on contiguous plots of land, the possibility of joining them together into one large port is minimal. A separate major port will need to be developed to provide the services currently handled by the individual ports.

Thilafushi is not the only place in the Maldives where private port facilities exist. Many islands leased on long term basis for industrial work have their own facilities for unloading goods directly from foreign going vessels. On temporary basis, resort islands under development also get permission to unload imported goods directly. With so many different port facilities, smuggling of drugs and dutiable goods could very well be widespread.

However, it is not as if private individuals are allowed to unload goods as they wished without any control. Under the existing arrangement unloading of goods can only take place under the supervision of MNDF and Customs officers onboard the ship. There could of course be loopholes in the system (as will be in any new system developed to replace it).

Nationalizing the ports in Thilafushi will not only help to control smuggling, but also will help to make the port facilities more efficient and widely available to all importers. However, it will involve major investments, not to talk of the millions of rufiyaa needed for compensating the current owners. After that, millions of dollars will need to be invested to develop a modern port similar in size or larger than Male Commercial Harbor. Of course there are many investors for this type of mega projects.

How about Consensus for Speaker and Deputy Speaker Posts?

In a flagrant display of belligerent posturing, the DRP-PA Coalition has announced its own candidates for the posts of both the speaker and the deputy speaker of the newly elected People's Majlis. Such posturing followed by a contentious election would only politicize the esteemed post and hamper the speaker's ability to function effectively. In order to avoid such dilemma, efforts are made in parliamentary democracies to reach consensus and avoid voting.

For example, after the Indian General Elections in 1998, the BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had the numbers in the 12th Lok Sabha (lower house of Indian Parliament) to get its own candidates through. But it negotiated with the Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) to share the posts. Ultimately C.M. Balayogi of NDA was elected speaker and PM Sayeed (a native of Minicoy) of UPA was elected deputy speaker unanimously. Later when Balayogi died he was replaced by Manohar Joshi of NDA, again without opposition. This arrangement continued through the 13th Lok Sabha. In the 14th Lok Sabha, which ended last week, Somnath Chatterjee supported by UPA was elected speaker and Charanjit Atwal of NDA was elected deputy speaker by consensus.

As of now it does not appear as if the Maldives Majlis is heading for a consensus. On Wednesday, the main opposition Dhivehi Rahyithunge Party (DRP), which won highest number of seats in the recently held parliamentary election, decided to submit the names of Abdulla Shahid (Felidhoo) and Ahmed Nazim, (Dhiggaru) for Speaker and Deputy Speaker respectively. Though not officially announced so far it is rumored that MDP will propose Ibrahim Mohamed Solih (Hinnavaru) as its candidate for speaker.

In the recently concluded parliamentary elections, DRP/PA coalition won 35 seats. The ruling party, MDP won 26 seats and 13 seats went to independent candidates. A total of 39 seats are required to secure a majority in the parliament.

Mohamed Hussein (Kanditheemu) the senior most parliamentarian in the Majlis will chair the first sitting of the Majlis to be held on 28 May, secretariat of the People's Majlis has revealed. The election of the speaker and deputy will be held during the meeting. For the sake of democracy, one hopes the two leading parties will find a consensus avoid a fractious election.

Sexting

Sexting definitely exists in the Maldives, though its true extent is not known. From the many incidents of nude photos of Maldivian girls appearing in ‘oriyaan’ sites, it is apparent that sexting is not that rare either in the country. There is at least one reported case in which a young lady lost her government job after her nude photos were leaked by her ex-boyfriend.

For those who are hearing the word for the first time, sexting is a new word recently coined by joining ‘sex’ and ‘texting.’ It refers to the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photos electronically, primarily between cell phones. Sexting was reported as early as 2005 in the Sunday Telegraph Magazine, and has since been described as taking place worldwide.

In January 2009, a survey of 1200 teenagers in America reported that one in five had sent explicit photos of themselves. A social danger with sexting is that material can be very easily and widely promulgated, over which the originator has no control. It is rather easy for explicit photos to end up in wrong hands because often what was once the right hand could also become the wrong hand, when he turns into an estranged and jealous boyfriend.

According to a CBS report in January 2009, three teenage girls who allegedly sent nude or semi-nude cell phone pictures of themselves and three male classmates in a western Pennsylvania high school who received them, are charged with child pornography. In October a Texas eighth-grader spent the night in a juvenile detention center after his football coach found a nude picture on his cell phone that a fellow student sent him.

The Case of the Confused Attorney General

Fathimath Dhiyana Saeed is a sharp and smart woman. She would even have made a good Attorney General (AG) had she given more attention to understanding her role and responsibilities as a cabinet appointee. Sad, but her stint as AG has come to an abrupt end Monday when President Mohamed Nasheed sacked her under Article 115(f) and 137(a) of the Constitution, perhaps breaking her grandfather’s record as the shortest serving AG of Maldives in history.

This is not the first time Dhiyana was confused about her role. She was similarly confused when she was serving as an appointed member of the People’s Majlis during the regime of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. From her speeches and voting pattern in the Majlis, it appeared she sometimes believed she was sitting in the opposition benches rather than among the President’s members.

Dhiyana may have had valid legal points on the issues over which her relationship with the president broke down –influencing parliamentary elections and creation of provinces. However, going to the press with her opinions was a different matter. If she was unhappy with the President’s rejection of her advice she could always have resigned.

In an interview given to Miadhu Daily, Dhiyana said “I joined Attorney General’s office as a State Attorney, after which I held the position of Executive Director and today as I leave office I have held the position of Attorney General; I am happy because I know that I have fulfilled my duties and responsibilities as per the constitution and in the best interests of the people, if I weren’t able to do that I would be holding my head down.”

MDP and independents score highest vote shares

The results of Majlis Election 2009 announced* by the Elections Commission on Sunday indicate that MDP scored 31.1% of valid votes, which is the highest vote share of any party or group. This represents 51,167 votes out of the total of 166,082 valid votes cast. MDP is closely followed by independents, who scored 30.3% vote share, or 49,862 votes.

DRP which bagged 28 Majlis seats, scored 24.8%, or 40,822 valid votes. However, since they scored this number through only 59 candidates, their scoring rate is higher at 692 votes per candidate. This is higher than MDP’s scoring rate of 682 votes per candidate (MDP fielded 75 candidates) and the independents’ scoring rate of 202 votes per candidate (with 247 candidates).

PA scored 5% of the vote share or 8,283 votes. They averaged 460 votes per candidate (18 candidates), which is considerably lower than MDP scoring rate. JP, DQP and other parties scored a combined vote share of 9.7% or 15,948 votes. They averaged 285 votes per candidate (56 candidates).

The following is the list of individuals who scored the top 10 results in terms of numbers:
1. Gasim Ibrahim (JP) 1,961 votes
2. Ahmed Siyam Mohamed (Ind) 1,423
3. Mohamed Musthafa (MDP) 1,423
4. Ibrahim Mohamed Solih (MDP) 1,413
5. Ahmed Mohamed (DRP) 1,395
6. Rozaina Adam (DRP) 1,378
7. Mohamed Ghassan Maumoon (DRP) 1,324
8. Ahmed Shareef Abdulrahman Yoosuf (Ind) 1,317
9. Ahmed Makhloof (DRP) 1,280
10. Eva Abdulla (MDP) 1,243
Interestingly the 7th and 8th top scorers lost the election.

[* includes Thimarafushi interim results, though not officially declared by Elections Commission]

A Saturday of Contrasts for South Asia

Saturday the 16th of May was a historic day for South Asia. The Congress Party in India was swept back to power with the country’s highest margin of victory since 1984. The two-decade long ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka came to a military conclusion. But in Pakistan, Taliban militants exploded yet another car bomb in the North Western city of Peshawar, highlighting the country’s uncontrollable tailspin into the bottomless abyss of Islamic militancy. (For Maldives too it could have been a significant day if the Elections Commission had gone on with its original plan to announce the results of the Majlis election.)

These events signify the tragic contrasts between the three South Asian countries born from the remnants of the British Empire in the aftermath of World War II. In Sri Lanka, its seemingly intractable ethnic militancy is coming to end, while the Islamic militancy in Pakistan is beginning to go out of control.

In India, the Congress won a general election, where the main issue at stake was development. As Rahul Gandhi said after the victory, this signals that Indians have rejected caste and religion based politics. This contrasts sharply with the General elections in Pakistan last year, where the main issues were religion and sharia law.

One wonders if the reality of Pakistan today is what its founding father Mohamed Ali Jinnah and its poet laureate Sir Mohamed Iqbal had dreamt.

Drug Smuggler Sentenced to Life

Mohamed Wasood Bisthaami (38) the Sri Lankan national who smuggled 4 kg of Brown Sugar (heroin) into the Maldives on March 2008 was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Criminal Court on Thursday. This case involved one of the biggest drug hauls ever in the Maldives.

Bisthami along with his female accomplice Sameen Ummul Faumiyya (56) flew in from Islamabad via Dubai carrying the 15 million rufiyaa cache of the contraband in five packets hidden in false bottoms fitted to their trolley bags and suitcases. Maldives Customs Service officers nabbed them at Male' International Airport in a special operation.

In the meanwhile Faumiyya (see photo above) has jumped bail and fled the country.