Comment:Without justice, talk of democracy is meaningless
28 Feb 2013, 10:00 AM
Mohamed Naahee
The ambitious journey towards a modern liberal democracy that we, the people of the Maldives, embarked upon has now come to a crossroads. With the ratification of a landmark constitution in August 2008, that enshrined broad civil and political rights to its people, hopes of moving on from decades of oppression towards a free and fair society remained on course.
However, the chronicles of Maldivian efforts to sustain democracy have yet again proven to the world that democracy does not happen overnight; exactly as former President Mohamed Nasheed said – that dictatorships don’t die with the routing of a dictator.
The first few steps we as a nation took towards democracy were led by Nasheed, a determined human rights and political activist, who had been repeatedly put behind bars for his dissent towards oppressors.
Nasheed backed by the country’s first established political party, the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), won the country’s first free and fair multiparty presidential elections in 2008, putting an end to the tyranny of a 30 year long autocracy.
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