Anni’s 3rd Option- atollcounselor Team reviews the first 100 days of Anni’s governance

In the election night when Anni was confident about winning, there was a strategic meeting in the “Location A” about prioritizing the governance of Maldives under Anni’s rule. Three things were highlighted to be the critical issues during the first few weeks of the transition while keeping the ordinary citizens out of their improbable equation and were formulated with Maumoon, activists and criminals in the country. The meeting was made extreme assumptions with the notorious three key measures. The premises were to convince Maumoon to leave the country quietly while making a staged political theater to disintegrate the DRP faction. Most importantly activists can be used as an asset to impose Anni’s dream of “Democratic Dictatorship” in the Maldives.

First Option

Considering the opportunities and the assumptions it was decided to follow the “First Option”. Firstly, it was making a deal with Maumoon on the Public Media while pressuring him to leave the country privately. Simultaneously MDP will also try to control DRP from inside as similar to the method they used with Jumhooree Gulhun making sure that DRP disintegrates. Further, activists will be controlled by offering high profile posts and finally criminals can be controlled by providing higher living conditions in the prisons or to stay at home in due terms. In addition, even if it was not so critical, Anni wanted to show that he is doing something for the citizens by promising unrealistic infrastructure developments and government spending in the name of their Manifesto.

Failure of the First Option

With a relatively opposition in the Parliament he was successful to control the “Activists Bosses” by offering them and their relatives key positions in the government. However, many other activists were to be left out with frustration of the limited positions available within the regime’s administration. In addition, the silent migratory plan for Maumoon and the disintegration of DRP were unsuccessful missions. Without a doubt, the momentum of “Seedhaa Harakai’- peaceful strike where he initiated to pressure the previous government came back to haunt him when people across the country started striking for every small thing as if the Federal Reserve was in surplus. Including those criminals who violated people’s rights asked to give them better facilities and demanded freedom to live up to the standard of normal citizen. Therefore, within the first few weeks it was obvious that Anni’s First Option will be a failure instead of a victory.

Second Option

If the plan A fails, the Meeting also agreed on a plan B. The major component of the Plan B was to sell Maldives to the greedy investors from abroad. To do this, it was decided to re- introduce fancy names such as “commercial diplomacy”, “de-centralization” and “public-private partnerships”, to contract out all the service industries in the Maldives to the international and the multinational companies. This plan was also a plan where no mercy was shown on public or else neither the people nor Parliament was kept informed.

Failure of the Second Option

While Anni can be credited being a good journalist and also an activist but he does not have capacity or apatite to analyze the situation and think forward as similar to the previous regime. Therefore, Anni underestimated the institutional capacity we have in Maldives for investments. For instance, Maldives does not have a legal framework for such investments. Unfortunately, due to the financial crisis government found extremely difficult to attract foreign investors and companies to invest in Maldives.

Does Anni have a Third Option?

Today with both the options failing to deliver any tangible outcome and public getting frustrated about the direction where the country is heading; Anni is left with “cooking” a new option. Therefore, today, we see a stressed President who cannot stay still, and give himself a minute to think about the priorities.

Thus, atollcounselor calls Anni to stop making unrealistic promises and come clean to the public about his agenda for the country. Everybody knows about MDP’s manifesto, but what people need is more strategic framework with detailed proposal to achieve the expectations of the public.