‘Dictatorships don’t always die when the dictator leaves office --- I learned this lesson quickly. My country, the Maldives, voted out President Maomoon back in 2008 in historic elections that swept away three decades of his authoritarian rule. And yet the dictatorship bequeathed to the infant democracy a looted treasury, a ballooning budget deficit and a rotten judiciary’.
These were the words of Ex-Maldivian President Mohammed Nasheed who was last week ousted at gunpoint after weeks of political turmoil. Agitation against Nasheed took a decisive turn when he arrested a senior judge on alleged corruption charges. This gave the long awaited opportunity for oppositions parties and religious NGOs to conspire with army and police to dismiss Nasheed. This is a lesson learned for all the democracies being born in Muslim world that unless a complete cleansing of dictators’ legacy system is made, they will be haunted again and again.
MASOOD KHAN,
Saudi Arab, February 11.