Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Can NUA agree to a single candidate?

Five political parties/factions known as National Unity Alliance (NUA) is working right now to see if we can (or whether we should) have a single candidate to represent NUA in the upcoming Presidential election. All the leaders have met twice and discussed this issue and is to meet again next week.

The following options are on the table.

1. To forward a candidate from each party and compete individually in the first round of voting and divide the vote as much as possible to deny 50%+ to Qayyoom and unite in the second round of voting and defeat Qayyoom on one-on-one, in round two.

2. To agree to a single candidate and start the campaign with one candidate and defeat Qayyoom in round one itself.

3. To wait until Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) and Social Liberal Party (SLP) to officially nominate their candidates to discuss this issue.

4. A very interesting 4th proposal has been put forward by a lobby group. They propose that NUA leaders agree to an interim candidate, not affiliated to any party, and defeat Qayyoom in round one. This interim president and his/her running mate will then resign in 6 months after making a level playing field for all candidates including DRP members interested in competing. This interim president will not compete in the next election.

Since this is a very important national issue, I look forward for your comments.

Umar Naseer
President
IDP

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Can DRUG be stopped?

After reading my Presidential Manifesto people ask me can strict penalties and actions prevent drug abuse? My answer is simple, YES and NO. My policy is Punishment and Prevention.

I believe we need tough and strict penalties to prevent drug from coming into the country and a wider approach in the process of rehabilitation and prevention.

I believe if we impose death sentence to the drug trafficker and really carryout death sentences by lethal injection for a period of 10 years, drug situation in the Maldives can be reversed. The suppliers will have enough fear in them that very few will ever attempt to traffic.

Death sentence is hard for a community such as ours to absorb and there will be limited pressure from Human Rights groups, but each country has a right to protect its citizens and its future generation. Today if we do not take tough decisions, face the problem squarely, tomorrow our children may not live to take that decision.

No matter how hard it is, we have no choice. If we want our children to be protected from drug, we should be ready to wage war against that.

Umar Naseer
President
IDP