Thanks to the recent arrangements to have a polling station here in the UK, I too now have the opportunity to have my say in the Maldivian Presidential Elections - for the very first time in my life. And for me, deciding on who to vote for in this round is a very very trivial matter - I am voting for change.

As a matter of fact, I've known I would not vote for Gayyoom ever since the two years I spent working at the President's Office (PO) six years ago. Being fresh out of school, much of the environment at PO - the cult-like demands for "loyalty" and regular "office meetings" where employees are made to sing songs praising the man (with lyrics written specifically for the occasion) - came on as a total shocker to me. By the time I left PO, having witnessed the various practices and policies enforced and encouraged, I was totally disillusioned by Gayyoom and Maldivian politics.

I am voting for change because I want to see an end to the growing national debt, care-free spending and wasteful expenditures and because I can't bear to see the growing disparity between the rich and the poor, the elite and the unprivileged and Male' and the atolls. I am voting for change because I've had it with the gangs, the drugs and the violence and because I want everyone to be able to live in peace with the rule of law upheld. I am voting for change because I believe in democratic values and because I support a free press. I am voting for change because I question the sincerity and the competence of Gayyoom to do these things and because 30 years of rule is 20 years longer than I can accept.

I am voting for change because I staunchly champion the celebration of diversity - of people and their thought - which I believe this country desperately needs and which I believe the Watah Edhey Gothah coalition represents. There, ofcourse, is no guarantee that this "change" will be any better but I'd rather give them the benefit of the doubt...