Happy Independence Day to all Americans

On July 4, 1776, the United States Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Congress.

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." President Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address of 1863.

The main author of the Declaration was Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of USA.

The preamble of the Declaration reads:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

The American Founding Fathers had a vision and were committed to the progress of the nation. Can the same be said of our politicians from various political parties and of our parliamentarians? Our parliamentarians have dismissed the idea of a bicameral parliament without even a proper debate. Our MPs have to be responsible for upholding the dictatorship we have today. The parliament voted unanimously to nominate Gayoom as presidential candidate for a public referendum barely a week after Eavan Naseem was brutally killed in 2003. The influence of the Executive over our Parliament has paved the way for abuses.

The Maldives needs a system with more checks and balances. We need separation of powers. For that what we need is a Presidential System. Contrary to what MDP’s mouthpiece Minivan Daily has been saying, the Maldives has never had a presidential system. Minivan Daily has increased its propaganda in recent weeks trying to make the unsuspecting people believe that the dictatorship in the Maldives is a presidential system. MDP and Minivan Daily’s propaganda has painted presidential system as a system that breeds dictators and encourage tyranny. For the Maldivian public, presidential system is now becoming synonymous with despotism, thanks to the spin of MDP, a party that claims to be working for democracy in the Maldives.

It is ironic that so-called reformists have cried foul over Gayoom’s ministers sitting in the parliament while they do not object to the idea of ministers being appointed to Cabinet from the parliament in a parliamentary system. It is true that Cabinet members will be elected MPs and not appointed MPs in a parliamentary system. However, we have seen how even elected MPs who are also members of the cabinet act to defend the government.

Our hope is that our young generation sees through the selfish urges of our politicians.

And we would like to wish a very happy Independence Day to the freedom loving people of United States of America, the land of liberty where separation of powers is exercised through a presidential system.