Having a loyal person by is everyone’s dream, retaining loyal members is every organization’s strategy, pushing loyalist for the frontline of political arena is a plan of every nasty regime.
Does loyalty really has a place in politics? Is it wise to believe that one who gives his time and commitment are loyalist? If yes, to whom should they be loyal? People of every constituency, the party he belongs to, the nation’s constitution or his own conviction?
Theoretically, “loyalty is appropriate in relationships that demand self-sacrifice without expectation of reward” Duska 2002. So if we could frame this theory to politics, we observe that politicians often expect or demand winning hearts and minds of party members. Therefore, loyalty does not exist in politics.
Nevertheless, researcher Corvino claims that “while loyalty requires a certain degree of tolerance of short comings, it does not require absolute or complete tolerance”. Thus it allows members to break their silence, if he could believe that the party’s decision involves twisted conspiracy. If he does, another issue is that “democratic verdict” – one must agree with the majority.
Last week, the biggest indictment surfaced in the Maldives was emergence of “rat” within Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party – DRP (main opposition party led by former President Maumoon). Alhan Fahmy has been lambasted by his fellow parliamentary members of DRP by casting his vote against party ruling in no-confidence motion against Dr.Shaheedh. He was suspended from party activities and investigations which are going on. So, is he loyal to DRP and its members? According to him that he himself investigated the issue from the scratch, and had not found anyways that he could agree with DRP ruling. In fact, its worth to note that he has also agreed and signed the letter before it was sent to Majlis regarding the no-confidence vote against Dr.Shaheed.
Last Friday, speaking to DhiFM 101 programme, he said that “till the very last moment I did not decide whether I should be voting for or against DRP. And very last moment I decided to vote against party’s decision”, that means he had “moral imagination” - what would happen if he could put party’s interest before his own convictions and belief. It’s obvious that in that situation any of his decisions would involve “dirty hand”- is a situation in which even when you do the morally right thing, you have also done something morally wrong.
Since he knew that he wasn’t be voting in favour of DRP, so why did he sign the document without reproving party’s stance at first?
Can we say that he signed it just to “save his face”, if not, can’t we argue that he changed his mind due to third party influence?
Since loyalty doesn’t require absolute tolerance, he has every right to justify his stance to DRP parliamentary group as well as ordinary members.
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