The purpose of President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu's remarks last night about amending laws to reduce the size of island councils is to seize powers and manage "affairs of islands from inside cool rooms," opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) President Abdulla Shahid has said.
President Muizzu announced plans to amend laws to reduce the number of council members in his speech at a rally of the ruling People's National Congress (PNC) last night. However, Shahid said the government wants to reduce councils in order to disempower the public.
"We cannot agree to gathering powers again to manage the affairs of islands to people in a cool room in Male' who do not understand the situation of the islands in order to render the people powerless in the infancy of the decentralisation system,’ the MDP President said in a post on X last night.
Moreover, Shahid characterised reducing the size of councils as an effort to destroy the decentralisation system.
“Eradicating the decentralisation system is not the way when the country starts turning to the path of bankruptcy with the inability to manage the affairs of the state,” Shahid said.
Responding to MDP President Shahid in a post on X last night, Speaker of Parliament Abdul Raheem Abdulla, the PNC’s chairperson, said it was the MDP that bankrupted the country with its mismanagement.
“It’s because the people know who it was that didn’t know how to manage the country and bankrupted the country from inside cool rooms that the people came out and brought an end to your government. President Dr. Muizzu’s government is a people’s government that functions with knowledge of the people’s sentiments. It is Dr. Muizzu’s government that will assure the fruits of the decentralisation system for the people,” Abdul Raheem said.
President Muizzu said at last night’s rally that public participation in governance would not be diminished despite a reduction in the size of councils.
“Reducing the size of councils is not giving up the true representative of the people. It’s not that at all. For example, we elect only one person as the head of state to decide on matters of the whole country. So electing five people, seven people for an island with 300 people, 500 people or about 1,000 people is a very costly thing,” he said.
Reducing the size of councils will be the most beneficial to the public, he said.
“When a President and Vice President are elected to the council as leaders on behalf of the public, that will be enough for small islands in terms of populations. And even if the number is made slightly bigger for somewhat larger islands in terms of population or for cities, I believe that making the size of councils smaller than now is the most beneficial to the public and most in line with the public pulse,” the President said.
The President said at last night’s rally that several reforms will be made to the system, including reducing the number of MPs and members of independent institutions. An amendment will also be proposed to hold the presidential and parliamentary elections together, he said.
