Appeal

Honorable Sir,

We salute you for ruling our country for the past two decades. You have done a tremendous lot of work in improving the quality of life of our people by building and providing for the basic infrastructure needed for important sectors as educating, health and security. These developments have been sustained and reached to the grass roots of development through the creation of jobs for the majority of the population to improve their living standards. The great emphasis that your administration has placed on the development of the Island folk is noteworthy and the improved living conditions, facilities and the lives of the island folk is living proof of the priority given to the improvement of this sector.

Fortunately you saw the hay days to the whole nation and you have contributed distribution of wealth to the country as well. These are living facts and not exaggerations. We believe you have done an excellent job to the fullest capabilities of you and your core team. We salute you for the honorable work and contribution of you and your team as a whole to the nation. However, the natural system of man is also the same as that of the natural cycles that decline after its maturity. These facts have been scientifically proved even before our time. And measuring from these standards you have been given twice as much time as the people of Maldives are so grateful and they have repeated shown this with the large percentage of support that they have shown to you.

The proof remains that the human wants are never limited and never fulfilled. But as a noble person with God given knowledgeable and intelligence, we believe that it might have crossed your mind more than once the fact that you have over stayed and over used the powers and time period of ruling. We would like to believe that you and your team would be rational and reasonable. There are children who were born in the year you came to power and they have got children and going to school now. Two decades is quite a lot of time.

We have thought about this and appeal to you and your regime to peacefully and honorably hand over power to the next generation in line. As an intelligent and honorable ruler, for you and your team to remain in the country after giving up power would be an asset and honor to our history. And we all want to see this as a reality and you to be a grandparent to our beloved nation. We are sure that you would like to see this as a reality even more than us. It would be your responsibility to pave way to hand over power to the most appropriate person. Just like the relay race, which passes the stick to the next runner, your duty is to transfer most honorably and peacefully power to the next generation in order to keep the race going.

Honorable Sir, we are not interested in any sort of violence and threats of that nature. But as concerned people of today, our humble request to you is to step down by end of this term. In the meantime, allow suitable people to prepare as the laws of the country may allow. Let the persons who contest be given the chance to present themselves to the parliament with the package they are offering to the people. Further let them also be given the equal opportunity to present their package to the people. We know it will be tough, but why not become the first person to do this and let your name be written the history books in gold. No Maldivian will doubt this. And they will all hail if you try to bring this modern look into selecting a leader of the country. I am sure these are not the days of Late President Mohamed Ameen Didi, who introduced and brought the Republican system to the country. Evidently you are a product of that. Ex-President Ibrahim Nasir has shown a great example to our nation by respectfully handing over power to you without doing any harm to you and your team as well. We all wish to pay due respect to him. We knew this from a speech given by you to the parliament and it was evident that he has never planned any attempt to stop you taking oath and getting into power. Hopefully this appeal will be read by you and also will be known to many other Maldivians.

Though the people do not have the power of doing much yet, the feelings of dislike are growing as you will no doubt agree. We fear that if these concerns remain unattended urgently, these concerns may mount to larger things and there might come a day where it will grow to an extent that can longer be restrained. Then the fate of Maldives might be that of Indonesia, which we have all seen in the not too distant past. Then who will take the responsibility? After two decades of hard and committed work in fulfilling your dream of building up a country from scratch, would you have the heart to destroy it all and the hope that you have built in the hearts of the people for a better life? If you had been genuine to the people in all the hopes and promises that you have given the people, we are sure that you would not do it to all the people of the country.

Nobody will remain forever and this is fact how limited and powerless we humans are. We, the oppressed citizens cannot even defend what should be our own rights. So many have to suffer to maintain your power. They are given unjust punishments by keeping them in jail, house arrest etc. Whatever it takes, we do not want to see violence. But when hatred grows and supercedes, the whole system will crash and it will all come to an end. Even the powerful within the powerful will no longer remain loyal. And this type of end will be really painful not only to yourself, but to your whole family and team as well. And the people of the country will also face the consequences to some extent. When you no longer have the power to have bodyguards to protect you against your enemies, who will protect you when the people who had been victimized, treated unfairly and cruelly by your regime uncontrollably attack you?

Your brothers, sisters, relatives and close friends will always endlessly request you to remain in power. Is that acceptable to you? Do you think it is right? You know it is not right. That is why you and your team while in Egypt started an anti-Nasir movement. His policies were old and unacceptable to you and your team at that time. His way of ruling became criticized by you and your colleagues. He was not good at all. Finally you were arrested too. Even others wanted change and they did not want Nasir. Though some of your trusted people wanted him to remain. So it is quite natural that today people are really fed up of your regime's way of ruling. We believe it is really time for you and your regime to go and hand-over power to the most able person. Truly you cannot be ruling Maldives for the lifetime of Maldives.