An
election is a process in
which a vote is held to elect candidates to an office.
It is the mechanism by which a democracy fills elective
offices in the legislature, and sometimes
the executive
and judiciary, and in which
electorates choose local
government officials.
Maldives
elects on national level a head
of state - the president - and a legislature.
The president is elected for a five year term by parliament
and confirmed in a referendum by the people. In this
referendum on 17 october 2003, 90.3 % voted in favour
of present-day president Gayoom (turnout 77 %). The
Assembly
(Majlis)
has 48 members, 40 members elected for a term of five
years in one eight-seat and nineteen two-seat constituencies
and 8 members appointed. At the last elections, 19
november 1999 (turnout 77.4 %), only non-partisans
have been elected. Maldives has no political parties
.
The
Presidential and Majlis
elections are held on a nonpartisan basis because
there are no organized political parties in the country.
Candidates run as independents on the basis of personal
qualifications. Although
in 1994 Maldives
had no organized political competition in the Western
sense, partisan conflict
occurred behind the scene. Battles were intensely
fought on the basis of factional or personal alliances
among elite circles. For more than twenty years, until
late 1978, the dominant faction had been led by former
President
Nasir, who ran the government
with a firm hand and who seldom appeared in public.
His sudden departure from Maldives,
subsequently revealed as connected with malfeasance,
ended a political era. Transition was smooth under
the new leadership group presided over by Maumoon
Abdul Gayoom, a former cabinet member and diplomat
who took office on November 11, 1978,
after a peaceful election. The new president
pledged to administer the country in a fair and more
open manner by restoring civil rights, by establishing
rapport at the grass-roots level, and by remedying
the long neglect of popular welfare in the outer islands.
However, criticism of alleged nepotism and corruption
has continued through the 1980s and early 1990s.
Gayoom's
presidential cabinet, including his relatives in key
positions, is considered a "kitchen cabinet"
of traditional power holders that exert a strong influence
against democratic reforms on a weak but relatively
popular president.
Events in the spring of 1990 tended to confirm that
Gayoom's announced support for democratic reform was
not being honored throughout the governmental power
structure.
In April, three pro-reform members of the Majlis
received anonymous death threats. A few months later,
all publications not sanctioned by the government
were banned, and some leading writers and publishers
were arrested. These actions followed the emergence
of several politically outspoken magazines, including
Sangu (Conch Shell). The circulation of this magazine
increased from 500 in February 1990 to 3,000 in April.
Gayoom
reshuffled the cabinet in May 1990, dismissing his
brother-in-law, Ilyas Ibrahim, as Minister of State
for defense and national security. Ibrahim had left
the country suddenly, apparently before being called
to account for embezzlement and misappropriation of
funds. He was cleared by an investigatory commission
in March 1991 and appointed minister of atolls' administration.
In April 1991, President
Gayoom established a board to investigate charges
of malfeasance against government
officials.
As a result of Gayoom's increasing assertion of his
power in the early 1990s, by 1992 he had assumed the
duties of both minister of defense and minister of
finance, posts which he still held in August 1994
as well as that of governor of the Maldives
Monetary Authority. Gayoom was reelected to a fourth
five-year term as president
in national elections in 1993. His principal rival,
Ilyas Ibrahim, was sentenced to fifteen years' banishment
after being found guilty of "treason" because
of his attempts to win the presidency.
