Pork barrel politics in Maldives?

As we see happening in several representative democracies of the world, Maldives too has embraced the concept of pork barrel politics at the expense of broader public good. The term "pork barrel" - which originated in United States refers to "appropriations secured by Congressmen for local projects." Typically, "pork" involves funding for government programs whose economic or service benefits are concentrated in a particular area but whose costs are spread among all taxpayers. (Wikipedia)

The Rf11.9 billion mid-term budget for 2010 has been passed by the parliament, the legislative body, after including Rf800 million which was added following a parliamentary committee review. This is in addition to the Rf4 billion deficit in the budget proposed to parliament by the government. The Minister of Finance has informed the parliament that he will not be responsible to secure funds for the additional expenditure included by the parliament.

A responsible government budget is necessary to maintain economic stability of the country. If the government spends more than it gets and continues to print money to make up for shortfalls, it will eventually lead to inflation and set off a serious decline of the rufiyaa.

With the separation of powers, the Legislature or the Parliament makes the laws, and supervises the activities of the other two arms- the Executive and the Judiciary-with a view to changing the laws when appropriate.

Now that the parliament has forced the hand of the of government compromising the separation of powers and adding to increasing political chaos, how does the parliament wish to hold the government accountable for the Rf800 million included by them? Parliament wants the government to spend this money- public money on among other things to restore civil servants pay and subsidise private media.

If the opposition in the parliament is doing this to derail government efforts to secure financing from international institutions, it creates a more dangerous tendency. It may lead the way for members of the parliament to practice the US style pork-barrel politics, to carry out their pet projects using government funds in return for their constituents loyalty.

Although we now have the framework for a representative democracy-i.e., elected individuals representing the people, our society is more sharply divided on political party lines. The political parties engage in a bitter adversarial struggle to regain power or to remain in power. Rather than a simple dynamics - involving only voters, candidates, and issues - we get a dynamics based on competing factions. Political parties compete for funding, support and for voter loyalty; grassroots movements, special-interest groups, and wealthy elite factions compete amongst one another to influence public opinion and government policy, etc. People have no control over what their "representatives" do. Wealthy elites, with their ability to fund campaigns - and in various ways to influence candidates, the economy, the press, and government officials - end up having a distinct advantage in the competition among factions.