Vote for Cash?

In an every competitive election in Maldives, it is a common rumour that candidates not only look into the legal ways to win the election. Whether it’s a presidential election or parliament election or an election of a sports association, the situation remains same.

Maldives most popular sports association is Football Association of Maldives (FAM) and they are now gearing for their second election. Even after their first election held in 2008, the speculation of wrongdoing in the election was a hot topic under the table.

Even the continent’s football governing body, Asian Football Federation (AFC), warned FAM just four days prior to the election that AFC would not hesitate to instruct FIFA to cancel the election if such things are going to happen. But unfortunately, the election result and the clubs voted couldn’t get rid of the rumours of illegal transactions during the election.

Such rumours are not exclusive to Maldives, as we are well aware of the case of former AFC president Mohamed Bin Hammam. Hammam was banned from football for life after he was found guilty of bribing some member countries just few days ahead of FIFA election, where he was competing Sepp Blatter.

Last night I got a text message saying one of the member club who has the voting right took MVR 1.8 million (USD 116,731) from one candidate and the same club took another MVR 800K (USD 51,880) from another candidate. I don’t know whether it’s true or not! But the thing I want to highlight is that in the very first election of FAM held in 2008 the same thing has happened and there were some members in the executive committee of FAM who has casted their votes just for cash. As a result, the same old drama is going to repeat and who is talking about it and who is going to take an action against it. Well, there is no one!

In 2008 when FAM held their first ever election, no one defended the rumour of selling their votes for millions. So, is it same after four years?