Nasheed’s supporters say that his government inherited the “worst economic situation of any country undergoing democratic transition since the 1950s”, writes R K Radhakrishnan for India’s Frontline magazine.
“The budget deficit stood at 31 per cent of the GDP, inflation stood at 12 per cent, and the economy was reeling from a massive fiscal expansion, which saw the government wage bill increase by almost 400 per cent between 2004 and 2009.
For the Maldives, the belt-tightening could not have come at a worse time: it had barely recovered from the effects of the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami when the slowdown in the West (which affected the flow of tourists) hit home. This was followed by the serious disturbances in the Arab world, a region that the Maldives is tied to historically.
The protests were organised by the opposition parties even though these were labelled as youth-led. This led to a bizarre situation. Since the main opposition, the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), claimed that it had nothing to do with the protests, the government was left with no one to talk to. The government had maintained that a faction of the DRP [Z-DRP], led by former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, was behind the protests. It said that Gayoom was inspired by the events in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and that he was hoping to overthrow the government after crippling its functioning.
“There are indications that the current violence taking place in Male has… everything to do with a political struggle for who should lead the main opposition party, the DRP, into the next presidential election. It is unfortunate that that struggle is being played out on the streets of Male rather than, as should be the case, by holding an open and transparent primary,” the Maldivian Foreign Minister, Ahmed Naseem, said in Colombo last fortnight when asked about the protests.
Reports indicated that the number of people detained was about 300, but the Foreign Minister dismissed it. “Only 16 persons have been held,” he said. The Maldives Police Service said on May 8 that of all those arrested during the previous week of protests, six remained in detention under judicial warrant. All six had previous criminal records, it said.
“The government understands that many people are concerned about the economy and the recent price rise, and is committed to working to address these concerns through a process of dialogue. For example, yesterday [May 5] the Cabinet decided to halve the import duty on diesel fuel. However, the current economic difficulties reflect, at their heart, deep-seated structural problems inherited from the former government…. The government is working closely with the IMF to address these problems. This has already resulted in the deficit being reduced from 31 per cent to 16 per cent,” the Foreign Minister added.
The government looked forward to receiving credible, alternative economic proposals from the opposition, said Mohamed Zuhair, Press Secretary with the President’s Office.
For now, the protesters have gone home. But with better ferry connectivity, ironically put in place by President Nasheed, they can come back anytime and paralyse Male.
The main opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) has filed a case in the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) against the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), accusing the party of bribing opposition MPs to join the party.
A senior member of Gayoom’s faction of the opposition and former Deputy Leader of the DRP, Umar Naseer, sent a letter to the Anti-Corruption Commission stating that ‘’offering money to an MP to shift parties is nothing less than an act of corruption.’’
The letter alleges that former DRP Deputy Leader and MP Ali Waheed, who resigned from the MP today, was bribed with “millions of rufiya”.
Naseer called on the ACC to monitor the bank accounts of Ali Waheed, his friends and family to assure that there was no corruption involved in Waheed’s decision to join MDP.
Umar Naseer did not respond to Minivan News at time of press while MP Ahmed Nihan and MP Ahmed Mahlouf were unavailable.
Meanwhile, tomorrow night MDP has said it will hold a special ceremony during which Ali Waheed publicly sign with the party.
Ali Waheed has not officially confirmed his decision to the media, however, senior MDP officials have confirmed that it will happen.
Aside from Ali Waheed, two other DRP MPs will sign with MDP tomorrow night during the special ceremony.
A Z-DRP faction senior official also told Minivan News that Ali Waheed and Hassan Shujau, a DRP council member, decided to join MDP after they were offered millions of rufiya “and other assets”.
Hassan Shujau has been now appointed as the State Transport Minister, days after he decided to join MDP.
MDP Secretary General Ahmed Shah and Spokesperson of MDP Ahmed Haleem did not respond to Minivan News at time of press.
President Mohamed Nasheed has appointed former council member of the opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), Hassan Shujau, as state transport minister, amid a recruitment spree that has netted the ruling party a number of senior opposition members.
Reports that Shujau and DRP MP Ali Waheed were planning to join the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) began circulating last weekend. The party confirmed Shujau had joined, although Waheed has remained silent on his decision, telling media that any political decisions would “be made publicly”.
This week Minivan News was told by a senior official of Z-DRP faction that both Ali Waheed and Shujau were to join MDP for an amount of money which is “so high that they won’t need to work ever again if they accepted.’’
Yesterday a special ceremony was held at the President’s Office to appoint Shujau to his new post, during which President Nasheed said that he was confident that Shujau had the capability to fulfill his responsibility as the state transport minister.
Nasheed also said he was pleased that Shuaju has made his decision to join the government and implement its manifesto after being affiliated with another political party.
Nasheed has also appointed Sheikh Gubaadh Abubakur, a former senior member of the DRP member and one time close ally of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom as undersecretary in the President’s Office.
After the government confirmed Shujau’s decision to join MDP, speculation has risen that Waheed would join as well.
Local media reports that a special ceremony is pending to mark the signing of MP Waheed, a move DRP Spokesperson Ibrahim ‘Mavota’ Shareef has acknowledged would be “a great blow” to the party.
“Ali Waheed is a rising star with widespread support, and it would be a great blow to the party if he were to leave,” Shareef said recently.
Meanwhile several opposition figures have begun criticising Ali Waheed for his supposed decision.
Local media reported that Z-DRP faction MP Ahmed Nihan had condemned Waheed and said that if he signed with MDP, “he is betraying those people who elected him as their MP.”
Leader of DRP Ahmed Thasmeen Ali told Minivan News that he did not believe Waheed would join the ruling party after running for parliament on a DRP ticket.
Furthermore, MDP confirmed that former Human Rights Commissioner of the Maldives (HRCM) Ahmed Saleem has joined the party.
“When I ran for the membership of HRCM, they issued a three-line whip to vote for me. They backed me when I ran for the membership of MBC’s board as well,” said Saleem, who was voted out of the position by the opposition majority parliament.
“I served the government for 42 years yet they rendered me unneeded. But MDP supported me even then.”
The DRP is currently riven by an internal political split as a faction loyal to former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom have sought to oust party leader Ahmed Thasmeen Ali, who has fallen out of favour with the party’s founder and ‘honorary leader’.
I would like to bring your attention to an event, “Sounds of Maldives” planned to be held at Kuda Bandos on May 19, 2011.
I cannot understand why the Maldives Government banned discos organised for the New Year’s Eve celebrations in 2009 and now take no such action for such events that are contrary to Islam.
Sounds of Maldives could have been held in Male’, there is certainly some reason why the event is scheduled to be held out of Male’, youngsters can easily smuggle bottles of liquor in their backpacks to Kuda Bandos.
I strongly condemn this and ask you to call the Maldives Government to stop this.
Yours Faithfully,
Enaz
All letters are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write a letter, please submit it to [email protected]
The Islamic Foundation of the Maldives is holding an international Islamic event in Sri Lanka on May 22, 2011: ‘Da’wah Islamiyya at Colombo 2011’.
“The event consists of two religious lectures conducted by popular preacher Sheikh Ibrahim Fareed Ahmed and Sheikh Izzadeen Adnan, followed by a Q&A session,” the foundation said in a statement.
The sermons will be aimed at Maldivians living in Sri Lanka, and will be conducted in Dhivehi.
“Da’wah Islamiyya at Colombo 2011” will be held on May 22 at 4:30pm at Shahran Banquet Hall, 56 Hospital Road, Dehiwala.
Tourism authorities in the Maldives have withdrawn the country from the New7Wonders campaign, after claiming the private company behind the competition began demanding increasingly high fees in order for the Maldives to compete meaningfully for the remainder of the competition.
The decision was made during Tuesday’s cabinet session after weeks of deliberation between the Ministry of Tourism Arts and Culture, the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) and industry stakeholders.
State Minister for Tourism Thoyyib Mohamed announced at a press conference on Wednesday morning that the Maldives was withdrawing from the competition “because of the unexpected demands for large sums of money from the New7Wonders organisers. We no longer feel that continued participation is in the economic interests of the Maldives.”
The Maldives has only invested US$12,000 over the lifespan of the campaign, mostly significantly on banners and voting terminals at Male’ International Airport, Thoyyib said.
Minivan News understands that the company behind New7Wonders, the ‘New Open World Corporation’ (NOWC), initially levied a US$199 participation fee upon signing of the initial contract in early 2009.
However, once the Maldives was announced as a finalist, NOWC began soliciting additional fees and expenses not clearly articulated in the original contract, which tourism authorities estimate will cost the Maldives upwards of half a million dollars.
Requests have so fair included ‘sponsorship fees’ (‘platinum’ at US$350,000, or two ‘gold’ at US$210,000 each), and funding of a ‘World Tour’ event whereby the Maldives would pay for a delegation of people to visit the country, provide hot air balloon rides, press trips, flights, accommodation and communications. According to tourism authorities, these services would amount to a total cost to the country’s economy of over US$500,000.
Minivan News understands that NOWC also attempted to charge telecom provider Dhiraagu US$1 million for the right to participate in the New7Wonders campaign – approximately US$3 for every citizen in the Maldives – a fee that was dropped to half a million when the telco complained about the price.
When tourism authorities expressed concern about the skyrocketing cost of participating in the competition, billed as a global democratic selection of the new seven wonders, NOWC expressed sympathy for the Maldives’ economic situation and instructed it to solicit money from the resort industry.
“We require sponsorship if you are going to benefit from a full World Tour visit,” a company representative said in correspondence obtained by Minivan News. “We believe it is perfectly within the financial means of the leading resorts, when combined, to afford this sponsor fee (especially considering the extraordinary image, economic and marketing benefit it brings to the Maldives and therefore to their businesses).”
The correspondence reveals that should the Maldives be unable to provide the money demanded by NOWC, it would be offered an alternative “protocol visit to your capital city, lasting one day. This visit includes the presentation of a certificate to the appropriate authority and a short press conference. The N7W team arrives in the morning and leaves the same day.”
New7Wonders emphasised however that “during our first campaign (for the man-made wonders) all the seven winners had very strong and exciting World Tour visits.”
In the terms and conditions on the organisation’s website concerning participating candidates, NOWC “ultimately decides whether a nominee, candidate or wonder is able to participate and or retain its status in the New7Wonders campaigns.”
Vague terms such as ‘non-compliance’ “may result in the temporary suspension of the participating nominee, candidate or wonder from that country. Persistent or un-remedied non-compliance may result in the permanent elimination of a nominee, candidate or wonder.”
“Essentially we’re paying a license fee for the right to throw a party, at our own cost, for an unproven return,” a senior tourism official told Minivan News, suggesting that claims a billion people were voting in the competition did not add up, as the Maldives had fluctuated wildly between 19th and 2nd and the tally was not transparent.
Furthermore, “any media that drops its price 50 percent at the first complaint is totally unprofessional, and in a mature media market this is considered highly unusual and poor practice. It means they haven’t justified the original cost,” the source said.
Not alone
The Maldives is not the only country to have been stung by surprise demands for sponsorship cash, not clearly outlined in the contract. NOWC reportedly demanded US$10 million in licensing fees from tourism authorities in Indonesia, which had fielded the Komodo national park as a wonder, and required that it foot an estimated US$35 million bill to host the World Tour event.
In February this year, the Jakarta Post reported the country’s Tourism Minister Jero Wacik as stating that the Ministry had received a letter on December 29, 2010 claiming that NOWC would “suspend” Komodo from the list of finalists if it refused to pay the US$10 million license fee.
“It’s not fair and irrational,” Wacik said. “I refuse to be extorted by anyone, including this NGO. I thought these are about votes, if the world votes for it, then it will win, what does that have to do with hosting the event?”
N7W founder Bernard Weber, "filmmaker, aviator, adventurer".
In response, New7Wonders founder Bernard Weber, a Swiss-born Canadian who describes himself as a “filmmaker, aviator and adventurer”, accused the Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Tourism of “reacting with malicious misinformation, invented financial commitments and prejudicial action to cover up for an apparent lack of moral responsibility and duty. In my view, with this behaviour, the Ministry has also reduced the chances for Indonesia to host other major global events that create goodwill in the world, such as the Olympics or the World Cup.”
He then announced that New7Wonders was revoking Indonesia’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism from its status as ‘Official Supporting Committee’ for Komodo, claiming that “last week strengthened the case for us to withdraw from Indonesia completely. If we depended on the Ministry, then today we would be forced to announce a complete pull-out.”
Although the New7Wonders site contains a link ‘United Nations Partnership’, the UN’s World Heritage body UNESCO in 2007 disavowed participation in the first New7Wonders campaign, claiming it was “a private initiative by Bernard Weber” with whom the organisation had decided “not to collaborate”.
“There is no comparison between Mr Weber’s mediatised campaign and the scientific and educational work resulting from the inscription of sites on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The list of the 7 New Wonders of the World will be the result of a private undertaking, reflecting only the opinions of those with access to the Internet and not the entire world. This initiative cannot, in any significant and sustainable manner, contribute to the preservation of sites elected by this public,” UNESCO stated.
After the world’s sole remaining ancient wonder of the world, the Pyramids of Giza, failed to garner enough votes in Weber’s first New7Wonders campaign, Egyptian Culture Minister Farouq Hosni criticised the project as “absurd” and described its creator as “a man concerned primarily with self-promotion”. The pyramids were subsequently made an ‘honorary’ wonder of the world.
The fate of the money apparently now being paid to NOWC by tourism authorities all over the world is unclear, although New7Wonders claims on its site that funds from the first campaign “have been entirely used to fund the running and campaign costs. The mission is thus to create a surplus during the current New7Wonders of Nature campaign which ends in 2011.”
Funds beyond that, the site states, are used “to set up and run the global New7Wonders voting platform, to run the first campaign that chose the Official New 7 Wonders of the World, to run the current campaign electing the Official New7Wonders of Nature, to run the New7Wonders organisation, [and] to create a surplus for distribution.”
Fifty percent of its surplus net revenues, the site states, are pledged “ to the main New7Wonders Foundation cause: the promotion of Global Memory, specifically the documentation and 3D virtual recording of all New7Wonders.”
Minivan News confirmed that a ‘New7Wonders Foundation’ is registered in the Swiss canton of Zurich as a charitable foundation, however the New7Wonders own website describes it as “a major, global-scale proof of a business concept based on mass virtual online dynamics creating concrete economic positive outcomes in the real world”, and the contract signed with the Maldives gives NOWC’s address as a law firm in the Republic of Panama.
Responding to enquiries from Minivan News, New7Wonders Spokesperson Eamonn Fitzgerald said the Maldives remained in the competition despite the government’s decision.
“We accept the resignation of the Ministry [of Tourism] as Official Supporting Committee (OSC), and we plan in due course to replace them therefore with a new OSC,” he said.
“As we enter the final months of the campaign we clearly see the difference between those who are ready for the unique opportunity of participating in the New7Wonders of Nature — such as the people and workers of the Maldives, who remain strong and active supporters — and those who are not able to step up to the challenge for whatever reason. New7Wonders always listens to the people, the voters, first, and therefore I can confirm to all the fans of the Maldives from all over the world, who are actively campaigning and voting, that they will be able to continue doing so.”
Fitzgerald further denied New7Wonders had requested sponsorship from the Maldivian government.
“We have offered the opportunity for Maldivian companies to come on board as sponsors, in the same way as other global events and campaigns are sponsored,” he claimed.
Asked whether the organisation was a charitable foundation or a commercial enterprise, Fitzgerald claimed it was both.
“At the heart of New7Wonders is the officially Swiss-registered not-for-profit Foundation, the New7Wonders Foundation. As with other Foundations, who cannot themselves by statute operate commercially, New7Wonders has formally transferred the commercial operation to its licensing company, New Open World Corporation, which then runs the commercial aspects.”
Addendum: This story has been updated to include a response from NOWC, received subsequent to publication.
Former President of the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM), Ahmed Saleem has joined the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), acknowledging the party’s support for his reelection to the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM).
“When I ran for the membership of HRCM, they issued a three-line whip to vote for me. They backed me when I ran for the membership of MBC’s board as well,” said Saleem, who was voted out of the position by the opposition majority parliament.
“I served the government for 42 years yet they rendered me unneeded. But MDP supported me even then.”
Saleem said he had “always held a firm belief in human rights and democracy and I strongly support MDP’s policy on democracy and human rights.”
“I believe that without those political parties will not exist either. I want to make use of what I’ve learned from the human rights field,” he said.
The Maldives’ Foreign Minister Ahmed Naseem is currently visiting Israel, the first foreign minister from the country to do so.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that during his visit from May 16-20 Naseem would meet Israeli President Shimon Peres and have dinner with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Liberman, lay a wreath at Yad Vashem and visit other sites throughout the country.
Naseem also yesterday met with officials of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, including President Mahmoud Abbas, and discussed issues relating to the peace process and the Palestinian reconciliation agreement.
Palestine’s News and Information Agency reported Abbas as saying that the peace process had stalled due to Israel’s refusal to stop settlement activities and terms of references for the peace process. Naseem reportedly expressed support for the declaration of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry meanwhile noted that “Israel and the Republic of Maldives have enjoyed diplomatic relations since 1965, [which] were suspended in 1974. Israel was the third state to recognise the Muslim island nation and its ambassador was the first to present his credentials to the president of the Maldives,”
“Relations began to improve at the beginning of the 1990’s. The present government maintains relations of appreciation and friendship with Israel; the two states have signed three agreements in the fields of health, tourism and education.”
Visiting eye surgeons from the Israeli ‘Eyes from Zion’ NGO were recently met by large protests, the burning of Israeli flags in Republic Square and claims from several local religious NGOs that the doctors were seeking to “illegally harvesting organs from non-Jews around the world.”
Former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s faction of the opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) has held a press conference calling on the public to be aware of false text messages circulated in the name of Gayoom’s daughter, Dhunya Maumoon.
Faction member MP Ahmed Nihan said the texts are being sent to different persons using mobile phone applications that can send texts under false numbers without the knowledge of the owner of the number.
“The texts say that Zaeem [an honorific for the former President] has fallen ill and is in a very critical condition.’’
‘’Since yesterday morning the persons who are doing this have been texting to different numbers using Dhunya’s mobile number, and people have been very concerned thinking that it was Dhunya who texted them,’’ Nihan said.
Nihan claimed the fraudsters “have been doing this either to mislead the public or to infuriate senior officials of the Z-DRP.”
‘’We don’t know who is doing this. The [ruling] Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) supporters re most likely to do things like that,’’ he claimed, “But considering the current situation we can’t say, it might even be someone amongst us.’’
Furthermore, Nihan called supporters of Z-DRP faction to clarify with senior officials if they received any sort of concerning text.
‘’We will try to identify those responsible for this and will take action against them,’’ he said, adding that Gayoom was currently in a very ‘’fit and healthy condition.’’
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