On Parliament’s Recess

The hottest topic in political circles these days is that of Parliament’s recess. When the Speaker put the matter to vote, I voted for recess. In spite of all the “spinning” that has gone on, I still believe that I made the right decision. Let me outline why. I apologise in advance for those readers who often express frustration because my Posts are too long. This one will be long. For the first time in my Parliamentary career, I have been questioned by some of those who support the work I have been doing, about the way I voted in Parliament, and I feel it is my duty to explain my justification for that vote. I must be accountable for my actions to the People. Next to my belief in Allah, my most fervent belief is that public officials must always act in the interest of people and that accountability by public officials to the public is of paramount importance.

Some of these writings and musings of mine are a bit long because when I try to write things concisely, I tend to write at an abstract level, and there are many readers who do not have the background information on many of these things, and they find it difficult to put what I write in the proper context. Subsequently, they pose many questions for me, seeking further clarifications and amplifications. So I try to write assuming nothing about readers’ background information.

Therefore, for those of you who have asked me about it with the sincere intention of finding out the reasons for the Recess, let me try to expound the reasons.

The Background

When the Constitution was being written, the initial draft prepared by the Drafting Panel for the Transition Chapter did not specify any dates for anything. It just listed periods for various activities. Further, the consultant and the panel advocated concurrent Presidential and Parliamentary elections, within a period of six to eight months. However, DRP, who held the majority at the time, insisted on specific dates, and wanted the Presidential elections, Parliamentary elections and Local elections in that order. MDP at the time was arguing for the reverse.

When dates were being proposed, I lamented, begged, wrote out detailed lists of activities and appropriate and realistic periods, all to no avail. The Chapter was written in late January / February 2008, and it was envisaged that the Constitution would be ratified in early March. If that had happened, it would have given us 8 months to make all the preparations for the Presidential elections and a full year to make preparations for the Parliamentary elections, and nearly eighteen months for the preparation of Local elections.

However, the Sub-committee of the Drafting Committee couldn’t finish the final editing of the constitution until nearly July. This was mainly because the Attorney General sent a document listing 301 “problems” with the Constitution (the Constitution has 301 Articles!), and the committee had to go through each and every one of them. Why? Because there was a veiled threat that unless they were accommodated, the President would be advised to send back that Constitution for reconsideration, which would have meant the death of it because then we would be required to get a two third majority to pass it.

Then the President took a further one month to ratify it, which meant it didn’t get ratified until Thursday, the 7th of August. Incidentally, if it had not been ratified by Thursday, the Election Commissioner would have been required under the old constitution to announce Presidential Elections under the old constitution on the following Sunday, which would have meant it would not have been a multi-candidate election, but the old Parliament-approval-followed-by-referendum system. This would have happened had we not demonstrated outside the Palace, which some labelled as the “Spectacle at the Palace”.

Therefore, what was written to allow an eight month period for Presidential elections was suddenly shortened to two months, because the envisaged ratification date was overshot by six months, but the election date was fixed. I believe this was done deliberately by DRP to hold the elections amid confusion. MDP also subscribed to it at a later stage. So did the Republicans.

We all know what happened in the Presidential elections. The whole thing was a bloody mess and a debacle.

In the process, the old and the new governments very conveniently “overlooked” THEIR constitutional duty and did not submit the necessary bills for Parliamentary elections to Parliament.

Due to the late ratification of the Constitution, what was envisaged as a one year period for preparations for Parliamentary elections was cut short to 5 months. The late submission of the bills has actually shortened the effective period to less than two months.

Both governments were fully aware that Parliament recess would come at the end of December, and that the Parliament would be fully engaged in the budgetary process during the whole of December. Therefore they knew very well that by delaying the submission of the bills until December actually meant that the bills would not be completed by early January. This would mean that it just left one month for everything to be done to hold the elections.

Nobody actually expected the Parliament to be firm on this issue and that Parliament would resist being bulldozed and coerced into denying the Maldivian People the right to take part in a free and fair election, an election which followed DUE PROCESS. So now that Parliament has done exactly that, they are trying to tarnish the Parliament, and in the process have successfully created a Supreme Court which can over-rule Parliament any time they want. Worse, they have destroyed the credibility of the only Institution in this country which has actually delivered any freedom and power to the people. After this Debacle, the People are left with a eunuch of a Parliament.

The Vote

Against this backdrop, on the 25th of December, just after the budget was passed, the Speaker asked for a vote (without any debate) on whether Parliament should go for recess as stipulated in the Constitution and the Standing Orders of the Parliament.

I voted for the motion.

In voting for the motion, I asked myself the following questions :

Will going for a recess violate the Constitution? The answer was No. It would not violate the Constitution for the facts that : 1. Article 83 of the Constitution quite clearly specifies that the Parliament shall have three sessions in a year, and that the beginning dates and the end dates of each session should be specified in the Standing Orders of the Parliament; and the date specified in the Standing Orders for the beginning of the Major recess for Parliament for 2008 was the end of December. In fact even the Supreme Court recognized this in their “ruling”. 2. Following the Presidential elections, Husnu Suood and a group of lawyers went to the High Court to nullify the elections because the elections had not been completed by 10th October as specified in Article 301 of the Constitution. The High Court ruled that overshooting that date did not constitute a violation of the Constitution because those dates in the Constitution were not absolute. The Supreme Court had not over-ruled that decision of the High Court.

Will not going for recess and quickly finishing the bills allow elections to be held by 15th February, as specified in the Constitution? The answer was No. It could not be done for the simple reasons that: 1. It would have taken about 10 days to finish those bills. Some would argue that it could be done in three days. But I disagree because the Standing Orders of the Parliament outlines a process for the passing of any bill, and simply following that process would have taken that amount of time. This meant that the bills could not have been passed before the end of the first week of January (The Lunar and Gregorian New Year Holidays fell into this period as well). That meant The Elections Commission would have about thirty five days to complete the elections. In the meantime, the Elections Commission had communicated in writing to the Parliament that they would need the bills to be passed by 18th of December in order to conduct the elections by the 15th of February. They wrote three times. They came in person to Majlis Committee and are on record stating that it could not be done, and they would need a minimum of fifty days to do it. 2. Article 170 of the Constitution spells out quite clearly the responsibilities of the Elections Commission in holding any election. Among these are delineating and announcing boundaries well ahead of time, publishing voter lists and registries with enough time allowed to address voters’ complaints, educating the Public about the elections. So I asked myself, should I allow the Elections Commission to shirk these responsibilities and hold a farce of an election yet again? The memories of the Presidential Elections are still fresh in my mind. So I knew the elections could not be held AS SPECIFIED IN THE CONSTITUTION by the DATE SPECIFIED IN THE CONSTITUTION anyway. If we held on to one requirement, we would be forced to violate the other requirement. Which way do I go? I decided, even if the date is passed, we must facilitate the election AS SPECIFIED IN THE CONSTITUTION.

In taking this decision, I deliberated on article 75 of the Constitution, that MPs must always act in the best interest of the NATION and ALL its people, in discharging their duties. In making this decision, we were taking the brunt of all kinds of accusations, but saving the Elections Commission from being forced to violate the Constitution. That is our job. To make the best decision for the Nation in spite of accusations from political opponents.

Has the Parliament worked to discharge its duties? The Answer was a big resounding Yes. Parliament has worked round the clock since January 2006, and has not had a proper recess since September 2006. As for me, this is the first recess I have had since then.

Who will benefit by a snap election? The answer was, the major league political parties, and it would put individual candidates at an extreme disadvantage. The sense I am getting from the public is that the Public do not trust political parties yet. The next lot would be the power hungry politicians sitting on the sidelines. They don’t want to waste a day out of the arena.

One final consideration in my decision was that if the Election was held properly, HA Atoll would get one more seat in Parliament, because statistical projections and numbers tell us if their population was increased by a few, they would be entitled to one more seat from what the Elections Commission was specifying now. It would increase from four to five.

The Summary

The summary is that by going for recess, Parliament has not violated the Constitution, and we would not have had a proper election anyway in the time specified, and that this was due largely on the failing of the government to submit the bills on time, and had nothing to do with Parliament.

I made the decision on behalf of the people who elected me, and for the benefit of the Maldivian People. I still think I made the right decision, and on Monday, when Parliament convenes, I will still make the same decision. If the people punish me in the next election for working in their interest by not re-electing me….well…it is their prerogative, and I will respect it. But I still would not change my mind on this issue. If the People weigh my contributions to this nation in the last four years as their elected representative against this one vote, and my stand on it, and this one vote outweighs four years of sacrifice and hard work, well….what can I say? It will decide for me, once and for all that the Maldivian people do not subscribe to my ideals and principles. This issue has to be tested now. The upcoming elections will show whether the People share my vision for this country and my principles.

Forgive me folks, for the lengthy Post, but I had to spell it out in detail.