Four years after first multi-party elections, our lives are not any better: President

President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik has said that the people of Maldives ask whether their lives are any better since the first competitive multi-party Presidential Elections four years ago, but the answer is, regrettably, not yet.

The President said this last night, in his statement at the General Debate of the Sixty-Seventh Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

“The multi-party democracy in the Maldives, so far, has been a deeply divisive one. It is also a polarizing one that is tearing apart families and the fabric of a small homogenous society. Political leaders elected to office by popular vote chose to act with impunity.”

He said that this is not because there is any inherent deficiency in the democratic form of governance, rather, it is because the road to liberal democracy is always rocky and long.

The President criticised the reaction of some countries to how the government changed in the Maldives.

“Some of our friends rushed into conclusions, and that did not make it any easier for us. Some big States, and some not so big States took sides in a domestic political crisis and contributed to making a bad situation worse.”

President Waheed stressed that international cooperation should not be used to undermine national capacities, and that it should not be used as an excuse for larger countries to interfere in the domestic politics of small States.

“We expect the result of international cooperation to help, not hinder, a country’s march towards a better, more democratic society.”