Victory Day event becomes platform for bashing previous regime

A state assembly meant to honor the ultimate sacrifices of soldiers and ordinary citizens who defended Maldivian sovereignty quickly descended into an aggressive smear campaign against the predecessor regime.

President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu weaponized the podium at the formal commemoration, unleashing pointed verbal assaults against the prior government by claiming that its fiscal recklessness drove the republic to the verge of total economic collapse, ran the currency printing presses out of control and buried the country under crushing debt obligations.

Dr. Muizzu framed fiscal autonomy as the essential bedrock required for any nation to sustain prosperity and maintain true self-reliance. He insisted that a state can safeguard its religious foundation, uphold its traditional heritage, and exercise an independent international voice only if it ceases relying on financial handouts, remarking that the nation had been pushed into a profound abyss by the time he took the helm.

Unsurprisingly, he showered his own leadership with praise, detailing measures taken to pull the Maldives back from the brink of financial failure, shut down the presses churning out unbacked money and pay off sizable public loans. To complete the self-congratulatory checklist, he took credit for ejecting external military units from Maldivian soil, launching diplomatic campaigns to regain disputed maritime boundaries and rapidly bolstering the firepower of the defense forces.

The address took an even more bizarre turn when discussing the deadly events of November 3. Rather than focusing on well-documented history, Dr. Muizzu asserted that the coup plotters received backing from an imperialist power functioning as a foreign state actor.

He characterized the domestic conspirators as power-hungry Maldivian nationals eager to shatter internal stability, generate disinformation and demolish historic institutions alongside private households.

However, his reference to an imperial nation-state left listeners baffled and sparked instant backlash across the board, given that the bloody assault was executed by the Sri Lankan Tamil insurgent outfit known as the LTTE, leaving many to wonder which sovereign entity he was actually seeking to implicate.

The head of state's performance ignited widespread condemnation across political circles and the broader public, with observers decrying that the supposedly solemn ceremony carried the unmistakable flavor of an aggressive partisan rally and partisan policy statement rather than an official national remembrance. Detractors highlighted how the President fixated almost completely on macroeconomic grievances and relentless score-settling with his predecessors, while paying scant attention to the actual solidarity and heroism displayed by frontline troops and ordinary citizens during the lethal 1988 crisis.

The true focus of this memorial ought to have honored the patriotic struggle of everyday locals who defied flying bullets on the streets, put their bodies on the line to aid the wounded and fought shoulder to shoulder with the defense ranks.

Transforming a revered memorial into an arena for partisan warfare and score-settling sets a disgraceful precedent. Solemn state occasions are being degraded into soapboxes for self-aggrandizement and political campaigning, rather than fulfilling their purpose of cherishing the legacy of fallen martyrs, valuing the tremendous sacrifices made by the armed forces and everyday people and fostering patriotic cohesion.

Allowing political theater to overshadow the authentic meaning of these national milestones inflicts immense harm on the historical integrity of the republic.