Inside the kleptocrat's mind: why Maldives' corrupt elite believe they deserve to steal

Corruption, the abuse of authority and state resources for personal gain, has extended its tendrils into every facet of Maldivian society. It didn’t happen overnight. It has been going on long before former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s era. As the anthropologist Elizabeth Colton observed in the 1990s, the Maldivian elite has simply evolved into post-modern bureaucratic systems, maintaining a facade of “democracy” that masks a decades-old culture of systematic thievery.

Every successive administration has sunk the country further into debt and sold off more land to multinational corporations. The currency’s value and the people’s social wellbeing have deteriorated. Everyone knows why. It’s an open secret. Corruption is at the core of the answer. 

In every administration, under every new leader the ruling party propped up, there was a so-called “opposition” that howled lyrically about the symptoms and effects (rising prices, criminal cover-ups, authoritarian laws, police brutality, unfair imprisonment, extrajudicial murder, and so on) but stayed curiously silent about the systemic origins and causes. 

When the #AdeebFiles leaked last month – thousands of messages showing a former vice president operating as a personal ATM for judges, lawmakers, and police officers – the response from the political establishment was silence, the kind of knowing silence that comes from complicity.

Why did former president Ibrahim Mohamed Solih pardon Ahmed Adheeb as one of his final acts in office? Why has the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party remained tightlipped despite damning evidence implicating their own? Why has no one faced meaningful consequences for the theft of US$ 90 million orchestrated by Adeeb, or more recently, for the Maldives Gas losing millions and inauguration funds turning into luxury apartments?

This pervasive grand corruption is not a bug in the system but a feature, normalised through corrosive patronage networks, historical entitlement, and psychological narratives that make theft feel justified.

Kleptocracy is a form of government in which corrupt leaders steal the wealth and resources of the country. Corruption threatens democratic institutions, but there is no inherent feature built into democracy to necessarily combat kleptocracy. 

Herein we confront the elements behind corruption unique to the Maldives: familial ties, faction loyalty, and patronage networks. A deep conflict arises when communal ties and relationships confront the cold dispassionate individualism of capitalism. 

A budding politician wins a seat in parliament. He is optimistic and full of passion for a brighter future. On the second day, his uncle calls and asks for help with his application for a new job at Fenaka. Surely a small favour cannot hurt? A few weeks pass and he's nudging his friends in the government to make sure his cousin's media company wins the tender for a few million Rufiyaa. And on it goes. 

Is he disloyal to his family if he refuses? Is he disloyal to his constituents if he does not offer help? It depends entirely on one’s system of values. It is precisely in these value systems that we find the early seeds of corruption. For working class people, one can understand why corruption could be so seductive. The traditional communal emphasis on reciprocal relationships has been corrupted into a modern patronage system, where political favours supersede legal and ethical obligations, compromising the integrity one expects from democratic institutions.

Generations of elites looting and pillaging the nation have created unfavourable conditions in all aspects of life – social, political, even spiritual.

It is easier for a politician to cater to a population that suffers. Through favours and a twisted sense of loyalty, politicians are able to maintain vast patronage networks in which they themselves are yet a node in a larger network. And so it goes until half the nation finds themselves caught in this web. 

This normalisation is reinforced by the lack of accountability. Aside from house arrest or a few months in jail or comfortable exile abroad, when was the last time a corrupt official truly faced real consequences for looting millions? Earlier this year, the Maldives declined in Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index, remaining "amongst the two-thirds of countries to score below 50." The reasons why are clear to most Maldivians: lack of both accountability and independent oversight bodies. What little regulation there is remains only on paper.

But there is a deeper element to the lack of accountability. It boils down to the simple fact that the mechanisms of corruption that serve the current administration will also serve the next.

For millennia, the monarch wielded absolute power supported by an aristocratic class, creating an entitlement culture where power was derived from existence rather than merit. Acts of corruption are not seen as immoral because the elite are merely claiming what they have long believed to be their birthright. 

In this process comes one of the most fascinating psychological aspects of corruption: the ability of an individual to construct narratives that soothe the guilt of criminality.

Self-justifying narratives can be as simple as "everyone else does it," "it's for my family," "the system is rigged anyway," or "I must do it as I have suffered" – reinforcing the cycle of corruption. The danger is that the individual could wholeheartedly and sincerely believe that they are not committing a crime. These narratives can be simple or quite complex, such as "I am stealing now so I have the resources to build systems that can finally make the Maldives a better place." But hiding behind these narratives is entitlement. Corrupt politicians steal because they believe they are owed their ill-gotten wealth.

But how can this explain theft committed by regular people? If a person is painfully and clearly aware that the elites steal and that their theft got them where they are, a person who aspires to their station could create self-justifying narratives: “since everyone does it, I might as well.” Otherwise they fall behind. The unfortunate truth in a kleptocratic system is that they are not wrong. The system rewards thieves. The rest gets left behind. 

The kleptocratic mechanism for control in small communities like the Maldives operates through:

It makes sense why people so loyally support their parties and leaders. If their party (in effect, their faction or tribe) wins, they stand to win the spoils too: stable employment for five years, land, cash handouts, political favours, protection, status. Solih’s scrambling to give away plots of land was straight out of the kleptocrat playbook. 

The political elite are loyal to themselves because they stand to gain from it, apart from loyalty to "their own people." Their supporters are loyal because they stand to gain from it, too. They become devout in their loyalties because if they lose, then their families will suffer the brunt of their opponents' victories. If this system is inevitable, then the rationale is that it's better to offload your family's suffering onto someone else's by participating in grand corruption – as a cog in that machine. That is why many people are unfazed by the kleptocrats and their thievery (unless it’s the rival party).

Dismantling this kleptocratic system is uncertain and frightening, so it's easier to choose a familiar suffering rather than an uncertain and toilsome future.

Any efforts at true reform and dismantling this kleptocratic reality will not come from within the existing system. The parties who have participated in this looting do not hold the key to change, and changing the party leadership makes absolutely no difference when the party systems themselves are flawed and corrupted to serve the kleptocrats. It is akin to a character trying to challenge the author writing their story.

Any meaningful resistance must come outside of that story. It must organise outside of party politics and sensational political figures. Do not let the kleptocrats co-opt "non-partisan" as a buzzword while still paradoxically serving these parties.

  

Ijunad Junaid is a Maldivian climate storyteller, who weaves together political realities, power dynamics and the ineffable beauty of the world. He works as the executive editor of Moosumi magazine. He is currently pursuing a masters degree in Human Ecology. 

Mahal Ibrahim Abdulla is a writer, artist, musician, and aspiring social scientist. He works as the managing editor for Moosumi magazine. He is an honours graduate in Politics and Social Policy from the University of Leeds. His goal is to become a researcher – to eventually settle down and live a quiet life. His current research interests are political communication, social psychology, and the degrowth paradigm.