Where is My Vote?

Practically everyone who gives a thought about the future of this country and its people are waiting with bated breath, even with hope at its lowest, for the Supreme Court to prove them all wrong and vote justly for everyone who cast their votes in good favor on the 7th of September 2013. Just like the sexual harassment issue regarding the President of the Civil Service Commission that unfolded late last year, the Supreme Court’s affair with the voting process has got almost everyone confused and some equally determined to exercise their right to vote. While the Chapter IV of the Constitution is pretty clear on the most important aspects regarding the Presidential Election, the Supreme Court on the other hand seems to be vested with the power to totally annihilate any laws as they see fit.

Moving on from the legal aspect which I certainly am not the most proficient person to analyze and talk regarding, my musings lie in the practicalities of what would unfold and I believe that there are going to be implications in holding the second round of voting this Saturday. If the entire opposition in terms of Nasheed is to judge the havoc these people can create, and if the Supreme Court does NOT issue its verdict by tomorrow and the members of the Elections Commission somehow grow balls of titanium coated with diamonds to even then go ahead with the second round of voting; just imagine the reaction from those who are afraid of this little piece of paper that civilized societies use to elect and reject those that are voted into various offices of the government.

Multiply the likes of Ilham, Riyaz Rasheed, Abdulla Abdul Raheem, Umar Naseer, Marz Saleem, Imran etc and their assisting rabble-rousers by a 1,000 fold plus the different gangs under their control that would certainly be deployed; one can just imagine the mayhem these people can create if you look at the level of vandalism the so-called prestigious members of the Parliament resorted to during the last couple of days.

With the Police Commissioner already vying towards the unannounced decision of the Supreme Court regardless of what the Police Integrity Commission has stated today which was to assist the Elections Commission in the voting process, it seems very likely that most police officers wouldn’t do anything much to uphold the Constitution they so claimed to love and adore when Nasheed was the President. The Constitution that they were devoted to upholding so much so that they could not sleep because of their need to topple the President from his position in their aim to show their respect to the document that forms the basis of all laws of this country. Add into this the various atoll and island level councils that are controlled by the opposition who’d refuse to cooperate with the Elections Commission without which the logistics of holding the run-off elections would be an impossibility.

Now, the question of the hour remains to be what the military would do if & when push comes to shove? Will they assist the Defense Minister Nazim to execute the ‘Operation Black Cobra’ or whatever ridiculous codename that it is called, that was circulating throughout the social media all of yesterday and help remove all vestiges of the democratic processes established in this country by opting for a military ruled dictatorship? Or will they rise to the occasion and for just once, serve for the betterment of this country and its future without being wusses about it?

There were rumors of supposedly a faction of soldiers within the military who believed that the coup was wrong, some whose egos were severely bruised by the extent to which the police force made them stand down so easily. Apparently this faction of soldiers believe in upholding the laws of this country and respecting the democratic process and if word on the street is to be trusted, they’d definitely come out in support of whoever the majority of the citizens of this country vote for and elect as their President for the next five years.

And in the meantime, the clock continues to tick towards the nth hour. And the question continues to loom larger than ever as the time of reckoning draws closer; will they or won’t they come out in support of the people of this country and its Constitution come Saturday, the 28th of September 2013.