Month: January 2012

India underscored its influence during Maldives 1988 coup: Times of India

When Maldives was attacked in 1988 to overthrow President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, India underscored its influence in the region despite the timely help to Maldives, writes Sameer Arshad for The Times of India.

It was a decisive moment for India in Male way back in November 1988. Dozens of opposition backed mercenaries had descended on the Maldives capital and attacked president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s palace to overthrow his government. A handful of guards engaged the attackers, allowing Gayoom to seek New Delhi’s help. Within hours, India obliged and flew in 1,600 paratroopers to frustrate the coup.

India’s timely help – considering Maldives had no army or navy – underscored its influence in a region which straddles the major sea lanes of the Indian Ocean. But more than two decades later, experts blame India for frittering away its advantage as China jockeys with it for influence in the region.

“India has, as usual, been very late in realizing China’s seriousness about Maldives. Like all its neighbours ( Nepal, Myanmar, Sri Lanka), New Delhi continued to believe Maldives will remain in its pocket,” says Harsh V Pant, a lecturer at King’s College Defence Studies in the article.

Pant warned of “real difficulty” for India if Maldives becomes another “pearl in China’s string of facilities around its periphery”.

China’s economic, political and diplomatic investment in Maldives is significant as it was not on its radar till recently, says Pant. “China has given India a run for its money, and even left it behind in some cases, in Maldives.”

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Islanders blame sorcery for brutal stabbing of 76 year-old man

A 76 year-old man has been found murdered with multiple stab wounds on Kudahuvadhoo island in Dhaalu Atoll.

Ali Hassan was found knifed at an uninhabited house around 8:00 pm on Sunday night.

Sub-Inspector of Police Ahmed Shiyam told Minivan News on Monday that a special team from the Serious and Organised Crime Department of police was dispatched to the island last night.

Reports have surfaced in the local media that the police detained four suspects from the island – however, Shiyam continued, “the team is currently investigating the murder and it is too soon to confirm anything in the case yet.”

Following the police examination, the victim’s body was returned to the family and buried this morning.

“The injuries sustained were horrific”, said Island Council President Ibrahim Fikry, who claimed to have seen the body.

Speaking to Minivan News, Fikry said that the victim’s forehead was slashed and that his neck was slit. “There were deep stab wounds to the chest and back, revealing the bones. The intestines were visible from a slash to the stomach,” he recalled.

The father of nine, known locally as “Ayubey”, was found murdered after he went out for prayer around 6:00pm, Fikry said.

“It seems he was attacked on his way back to home. The house where his body was found is situated close to where he lives,” he observed.

He added that the police discovered Hassan’s body inside a house while searching the area, after some locals reported an “unusual blood spatter on the road” near the house.

Sorcery afoot

The appalling murder has left many islanders on Kudahuvadhoo shocked and frightened.

Speaking to Minivan News, an islander from Kudahuvadhoo claimed that the victim was “unpopular” in the community for his alleged practice of sorcery.

“Because the wounds are so inhumane, some people believe the death was caused by Fanditha [sorcery] or Jinni [evil spirits],” he said under condition of anonymity.

According to the islander, the victim had previously been accused of using sorcery on a 37 year-old woman, who was reported missing at 2:00am on 4 December 2011 and whose body was found floating in Kudahuvadhoo lagoon later that morning.

The body was bleeding from an injury between her nose and mouth upon recovery, as if she had been punched or hit, the island council claimed at the time.

However Sub-Inspector Shiyam told Minivan News at the time that police had not noticed any incriminating injuries on the body and were not treating the incident as suspicious.

Hassan’s family was quoted in local media claimed that he was not a sorcerer, and claimed he had received death threats from another family on the island.

Hassan was formerly Deputy Chief of Gemedhoo island in Dhaal Atoll which was devastated in the 2004 tsunami. When the population resettled in Kudahuvadhoo, he was voted out of position over allegations of child abuse, said a council member.

The incident has meanwhile sparked fear among the island’s 3000 inhabitants, and some islanders “do not even come out of the house after dark”, according to a source.

“Some people believe that if sorcery is practiced wrong, the spell will be reversed, and the sorcerer can suffer paralysis, disability or in some circumstances even die at the hands of evil spirits”, he explained.

He added that dusk is generally considered to be the time of the day when Jinni are considered to be at large, and it was inadvisable to be out after dark. “Hassan’s body was found a few hours after the sundown,” he noted.

This is the second incident in three years in which the dead body of an old man was found abandoned, with injuries.

In September 2010 Hussain Mohamed Manik, a prominent businessman known as ‘Hussainbe’, was found dead inside an abandoned house on Hoarafushi in Haa Alifu Atoll.

Police at the time suggested that Hussain, age 61, may have been murdered, however due to lack of evidence for the charge the Prosecutor General (PG)’s Office instead pressed terrorism charges against three suspects who reportedly took him hostage and robbed him.

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Muhyiddin School powers up first of 652 kW solar panels across six islands

Muhyiddin School in Villingili has switched on 61 kW of rooftop solar panels, enough to power 30 houses and the first panels of a 652 kW watt solar project to be rolled out across six islands.

The panels were switched on Monday morning by Germany’s Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation & Nuclear Safety, Katherina Reiche, with data on the power generated fed into a web browser application projected onto a screen at the school.

The project was the result of a power-purchasing agreement signed by State Electric Company (STELCO) with Renewable Energy Maldives (REM), while German solar firm Wirsol provided technology and financing.

The project was signed in June 2011. The panels to be rolled out include 294 kW in Villingilli, 64 kW in Guraidhoo, 78 kW in Himmafushi, 120 kW in Maafushi, 48 kW in Kaashidhoo and 48 kW in Thulusdhoo.

Panels will be installed at six sites in Villingili. Including the school’s 61 kW, there will be 74 kW at Eduruvehi, 28 kW on Cinamale’, 40 kW on the Judicial Building, 58 kW on the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) flats and 33 kW on the powerhouse.

REM had initially proposed a system to provide 70 percent percent of daytime load across six islands on the back of the government’s proposed feed-in tariff, but STELCO reduced the installation to 30 percent with the intention of later expanding it.

Head of REM, Dr Ibrahim Nashid, said the success of project was an important step that would instill confidence among others in the power sector to invest in renewable energy.

“When we tested the [Muhyiddin] system we found the panels were generating 10 percent more than we had initially calculated,” he said. “It is a good indication of the potential for solar in the Maldives.”

The photovoltaic panels on the roof of Muhyiddin school will power the school across were the first grid-connected solar system in the Maldives, he said. “We are groundbreaking. I say that not as a boast, but because it is difficult to bring across what we do.”

The panels were “plug and play”, simple to maintain, and modified to withstand a salty environment with a lifespan of 25 years, “probably longer than the roof”, Dr Nashid said.

Power from the solar panels will be sold – and fixed – at 25 cents a kW/hour, compared to the current cost of around 35 cents a kW/hour.

Founder of Wirsol, Stefan Riel, said the six-island 652 kW installation would avoid the equivalent of 800 tons of carbon entering the atmosphere every year.

“In the next 12 months, we want to put 20 mW into the grid across several islands, which would mean 25,000 tons of carbon reductions,” he said.

“We are using German technology and experience to create jobs in the Maldives, and give young people here the opportunity to be involved in their energy production. For that to happen we need the continued support of the Maldives government, and the German Development Bank.”

While the final details of the feed-in tariff are still being discussed, the Wirsol system will operate “under a special arrangement between us an STELCO,” Riel said.

Cabinet has embraced the economics of solar and announced plans to generate up to 80 percent of the country’s electricity using the proven technology, while President Mohamed Nasheed has installed solar panels on the roof of both his residence and office.

Research conducted last year suggested that electricity costs could be reduced to 17 cents or even lower on some islands through the use of solar. Many existing diesel generators on islands are extremely expensive to run as they have a capacity far above the demand of their islands, with electricity costing up to 77 cents a kW/hour in some areas. Solar was, claimed the President’s Energy Advisor Mike Mason, “an opportunity to print money – and there aren’t many of those available to the government.”

But the key challenges remain economic and regulatory, according to REM’s Director Hudha Ahmed.

“We have been making 20-25 year contracts on good will. We need to make sure investments are secure and that regulations are in place,” she said. “Contracts also have to be signed by the councils as well as the utility providers, as the councils have the responsibility for providing electricity.”

However capital investment and the lack of financing options was the greatest obstacle, she said.

“It has been a huge challenge – no bank would finance this project,” she said. “We approached every bank in the Maldives but none would invest.”

Very few people in the Maldives would have US$5000 to invest in a typical rooftop solar system, she explained, even if such a system were to cut the average electricity bill in half and pay for itself in 5-6 years.

While elaborate financing mechanisms exist to fund the capital city’s enormous motorcycle fleet, with costs not dissimilar to a solar PV system, no such small loans system exists for solar.

“The solar technology itself is really the simplest part,” Hudha said.

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ARC: Problems, progress and perceptions of an NGO

While political games and religious debates preoccupy media and coffee talk, civil sector projects persist in providing for the public. But they are subject to suspicion, and often slip under the radar.

“Promotion is hard,” said Zenysha Shaheed Zaki of the NGO Advocating the Rights of Children (ARC). “We keep trying to invite the media to events and get people to attend, but it always seems to collide with a political event.”

Recently, ARC organised an exhibition of children’s artwork from the shelters Education and Training Centre for Children (ETCC) on Maafushi and the Correctional Training Centre for Children (CTCC) on Feydhoofinolhu. In spite of promotions, the religious protests of December 23 and their aftermath coincided with the exhibition and more or less wiped it into the background.

“I practically dragged people in from the street!” said Zaki. “But once they were there, many found that they actually enjoyed the display, and some even came back three, four times with friends who hadn’t seen it yet. So there is a public interest in this, and that’s really what we want to achieve.”

ARC was founded in 2009 to bolster the work of ETCC, CTCC and the shelter at Kudakudhinge Hiya. Although the shelters address different groups of children with different needs, they share the same basic interest – improve children’s lives. However, as Zaki experienced with the media, the shelters were struggling to forge a productive network.

Yet Zaki, who volunteered at the shelters after returning from school in New Zealand, said short staffing and minimal funding made it difficult for the shelters to organised events individually. By creating a separate NGO specifically aimed at connecting the members of the child’s rights sector, she believed the stress on individual shelters could be reduced and progress could be achieved.

“The shelters didn’t have strong communication before,” Zaki said, pointing out that while ETCC and CTCC focus on juvenile delinquents Kudakudhinge Hiya attended to abandoned children below age nine. “Their work was different, but we found that the issues were more or less the same. We wanted to see what we could do to help in a more organised way.”

Deputy Health Minister Fathimath Afiya worked in the civil society sector for 18 years before joining the government. She said that while there is “a good number” of organisations addressing child care matters across the islands, “it’s a huge area of work with many challenges.”

The Ministry of Health and Family works closely with the relevant NGOs, and is trying to build a partnership with the corporate sector. According to Afiya, the ministry has signed Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) with NGO Maldives Red Crescent and corporate group Aima.

“But there still needs to be a mechanism for NGOs and the government to form a partnership. We have to create funding opportunities and better articulate ways to achieve our goals,” she said.

Validating Zaki’s instinct that most groups concerned with child and family matters share similar goals, Afiya said the government relies on NGOs for help jump-starting programs in society.

However, the relationship between the government and the civil sector is still on the drafting table. And it may be drafting a few too many organisations.

At the 2011 UN International Democracy Day ceremony, FJS Consulting Pvt. Ltd.  highlighted key operational issues facing the Maldives’ civil sector in a “Comprehensive Study on Maldivian Civil Society”.

Over 1100 Civil Society Organisations (CSO) and NGOs are registered in the Maldives–almost one organisation for every 300 people. CSO’s average employee is age 25, with an education level ranging from grade 6 through 10. Only 0.7 percent of employees are paid due to a funding shortage – donors provide the least amount of funding, and most CSO fundraising efforts only cover about 30 percent of program costs.

Tracking funds and goals accomplished is difficult.

“The government is trying to provide aid but the structure of how to do it is not specified,” said Managing Director Fareeha Shareef at the event, noting that many CSOs don’t actually engage in the activities for which they are named, such as sports.

Speaking today with Minivan News, Shareef agreed that the high number of organisations is not supported by adequate funds and resources, but added that lack of awareness and communication are key problems.

“Most NGOs don’t know what the others are doing, or which other NGOs are working in their sector,” she explained, adding that steps are being taken to create a central communications database for the civil sector. “If the sector can organise and if resources can be better distributed by groups working together, there would be dramatic change.”

Unfortunately, the Maldives ranks highly for corruption and corruption perception. Zaki noted that there is a general public suspicion that NGOs request funding without a clear action plan, and that the money disappears unaccountably. She said this was one reason why ARC did not request funding for the first two years of operation.

“2012 will be the first year for fundraising at ARC,” she said, pointing out that “we didn’t want to request money without being able to prove that it would go to good use.

“Also, we found that things like concept designs for campaigns were incredibly expensive. We decided it was better to use our own resources.”

Working late into the night after her day job at the Foreign Ministry, Zaki called on friends to act in educational videos and help with design and advertising. Although ARC has many members Zaki said it is difficult to find active volunteers. Unable to find a local nutritionist for the HEAL campaign, she coaxed a friend from New Zealand with expertise in the field to take a volunteer work-based vacation in the Maldives.

Pointing to the 0.7 percent of paid NGO employees, Shareef said the high number of youth volunteers in the civil sector is encouraging–but it is also a major concern. “Almost the entire sector is young and working on a voluntary basis. This means that there is a high turnover–young people need to get paid to get by, and so they move into the paid industries,” she said.

Contrary to public assumption, Shareef said, Maldivians volunteer often and form NGOs out of a genuine interest. But unlike politics, work in the public sector is rarely a public priority. “There is not enough dialogue among the NGOs and not enough clear coverage within the media,” she said, contrasting smaller islands “where people what their NGOs are doing” to Male’, where the population is so dense that the civil sector is heavily clouded. “People have only their perceptions, they aren’t being informed of what NGOs do.”

When asked whether ARC was the first in its field, Zaki said she could not say which other NGOs were addressing children’s rights. According to FJS’ findings, children and youth are supported by less than 20 percent of NGOs. Approximately one-fifth of NGOs promote healthy living, empower vulnerable groups, or provide support for education. Over 50 percent focus on sports, music, arts and leisure.

Operating solo in the civil sector, ARC provides direct support to the shelters while also expanding their reach to donors and the larger community.

In 2011, ARC campaigned for Healthy Eating and Lifestyle (HEAL), Internet safety, prevention of child abuse, and road safety. Zaki said the campaigns reached parents as well as children.

“You would be surprised how long the Q&A sessions went on for,” said Zaki. “A lot parents assume that it’s good if a child is at home playing on the computer rather than running around the streets. And they don’t realise how much sugar goes into packet drinks, or how much fat is in a sausage. And the children would sometimes tell their parents that they weren’t supposed to walk in the street, for instance.”

ARC also organised sports activities, including a month-long swimming program with Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF), and childcare trainings with Nurses of Maldives. Volunteers help teach children certain life skills which can benefit them personally and financially. “You teach a child to bake a cake, and that child can also go and work in a bakery,” Zaki explained.

In spite of the difficulties, Zaki said she is pleased with ARC’s progress and is particularly glad to see first hand that donations are being properly invested by the shelters.

“It’s good to have a personal connection,” she explained. “They trust us, and we have a real interest in seeing changes made.”

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Comment: Why are the Dhivehin suffering?

In a global world – where the struggle for power is a reality – how do we see the Maldivian situation from Europe?

The world has become a small place to live, indeed very small. Today’s communications can spread news very quickly and people are crying for freedom.

People are tired of being abused and mislead. People are also tired of not having a clear future for their children as uncertainty brings along misery and fear.

Fear, in its turn, brings along pain and a country, just like a sick person, needs to have its pain soothed or complaining, shouting and other similar reactions will take place.

We saw it in Tunisia with the Arab Spring – the Arab awakening – we saw it in Spain, where people went out to the streets to complain about the Government and the banking system, we saw it in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait.

We will see it in Morocco and in Israel. In this sense, the Maldives, a peaceful country up to this moment, is no more no less the confirmation to the rule.

But what is creating pain among the Dhivehin? What is making people cry and become furious? Where is the Maldives going to go? Will we see a Dhivehin spring?

Up until not so long ago the Maldives was a place where freedom of ideas did not exist. For instance, writing in a news site like this was unthinkable, impossible, unless you wanted your bones ending up in jail and your body buried underwater up to your belly.

Today, Maldivians and foreigners can speak. It is possible to write and to some extent there is freedom of expression. So, what is creating pain today?

The Dhivehin did not forget the last years of politics in the country, did they? Was silence the price to pay for peace? If so we all have to know that repression is never a solution. Repression is like a cork glued to the floor of a swimming pool: it might stay there for sometime but one fine day it will pop up to the surface with such energy that someone will get hurt. Why should the Maldives be different?

The present government has installed the right to speak, but is that enough to modernise a country and foster its development, with a economy so dependent on tourism and fishing? Did people forget where are they coming from? Is it a good idea to give an airport to a foreign country? What are really the development policies to make the Maldives a respectable country within the region?

The airport is in Indian hands, what will be next, the port? To whom would the government give the port? China? Would the country be better with the previous government? No, certainly not. So, what is happening?

So many questions to be answered, so many subjects to be questioned.

This article is not about governments, honestly, but is about people of the Maldives having a better life and a future for its people and their children. Governments are all different but alike. In Europe, for instance, it doesn’t make any difference who will be there next time. We really don’t care. If they are efficient, their colours do not matter to us. If they are crap – and most of the European governments have corruption on their shoulders – they will be sacked through an election. It doesn’t matter how many times they change until the lesson is learned. These are the rules of the game.

Maldives is seen by some of us who have been in your country many times, like a youngster. You have the energy to cry, to get angry, but not enough power to manage your immediate future, although you are very bright people. Giving the country’s structures to others will not help.

So what is making the Dhivehin suffer? With my utmost respect for the Dhivehin people, why are you fed-up and shouting? You Maldivians, to answer that question! What is causing unrest today? Can you still not talk? Are you still afraid? What is missing? Remember the butterfly effect in chaos theory. Be aware of inflexible movements, religious or others, that are the right hand of the repression or you will not go down the path of development.

May the country of the 1190 islands and its people stay above turbulent waters for a long time.

Carlos Swartz is a journalist and teacher at Lisbon University, Portugal.

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]

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Opposition coalition to hold “national symposium” on February 24

The 23 December Coalition of religious NGOs and opposition political parties has decided to hold another mass gathering on February 24, calling the government to yield to the demands of the December 23 protest to “defend Islam”.

In press conference held today, coalition spokesperson Abdullah Mohamed clarified that the coalition is not organising a protest, while referring to the gathering as a “national symposium” to raise the voice of the people.

“We welcome people from all the islands to come and join the symposium on February 24,” Mohamed said.

The coalition representatives declined to give information to the press on the how the symposium would proceed, though Mohamed pointed out that the symposium will be organized according to the “pulse of the people”.

Hinting that “it will not be held under a roof”, Mohamed said only that “the symposium will be held in a location similar to where we held the previous rally”.

Five demands were previously addressed to the government: prohibit Israeli flights from operating in the Maldives, close all massage parlors “and such places where prostitution is practiced”, reverse the decision allowing the sale of alcohol in areas of inhabited islands declared ‘uninhabited’ – such as in Addu City and Fuvahmulah where the government plans to build city hotels – condemn UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay and apologise for her comments against flogging, and remove allegedly “idolatrous” SAARC monuments in Addu City.

The government subsequently addressed each point, most notably ordering that spa operations be shut down across the country and announcing that it would consider a ban on pork and alcohol in the interest of “respecting Islamic principles.”

The 2012 State Budget leans heavily on expected revenue from tourism.

Speaking at the press conference opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) Deputy Leader ‘Mavota’ Ibrahim Shareef said that the symposium is among a “series of actions” to be organised by the coalition.

“This time we are calling to defend Islam and the nation”, he observed.

Shareef said a delegation from the coalition will visit Sri Lanka to explain the December 23 protest and demands to officials of embassies unspecified, as it claims the Maldivian government has spread “many lies” to defame the coalition.

The coalition also intends to meet with international press to give accurate information.

Furthermore, the coalition intends to mark a “special day to inform the demands to President Mohamed Nasheed”, Shareef said, adding that the President is deliberately “twisting the meanings to aggravate us”.

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Germany to provide technical assistance on waste management

Investment in waste management solutions in the Maldives had produced very little outcome due to a lack of community involvement, Environment Minister Mohamed Aslam said today following a meeting with the German government.

Visiting Parliamentary Secretary at the German Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Katherina Reiche, said that Germany would provide technical assistance to the Maldives on waste management, but was unwilling to invest in a project.

Germany would “rather provide technical assistance, guidance and support towards managing a long term waste management system,” Reiche said, noting that the Maldives’ ambitions towards carbon neutrality were “very ambitious”.

“Equipment and machinery has been sent to various islands but with little effect and outcome. What we need is a plan with more community participation,” Haveeru reported Aslam as saying. “Waste management is an issue for which we don’t have a solution.”

A previous report from the European Commission into the efficacy of its programs in the Maldives found that millions of euros invested in waste management were “too ambitious”.

“The environmental support program was too ambitiously planned and had to be scaled down to solid waste management only,” the report stated. “Constructed island waste management systems are, with few exceptions, not operational, and waste management centres are unequipped.”

The failings of this project were due in part to “technical” problems, including design weaknesses and missing equipment, “and insufficient involvement of communities in general, notably the Island Women Development committees.”

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Raajje TV runs footage of Sheikh Shaheem and alleges sex scandal

Sheikh Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed, chief spokesperson of the religious Adhaalath party and former State Islamic Minister, has been accused of sexual misconduct in a video broadcast by local media Raajje TV, in which he is seen speaking with a figure in a hijab before leading her through a doorway.

“The video shows Shaheem with a woman who is not his wife, talking and holding hands and going into a bedroom,” said Raajje TV’s Assistant News Editor Dhanish Nasheed.

When Minivan News expressed doubt that it could be accurately concluded that the room was a bedroom, Nasheed claimed that the corner of a bed was visible in the video.

Nasheed said Raajje TV obtained the video from the video-sharing website Daily Motion, however it has since been removed from that site.

Broadcasting the video as evidence of a “sex scandal”, Raajje TV claimed the station could not release further footage in the interest of public decency. Today media was speculating that the woman in the video was the daughter of a senior member in the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), however her face was not visible in the footage.

Although the only identifying features visible in the video were a profile of the woman’s nose, her watch and a white-cased phone, Raajje TV claimed she was not a wife of Shaheem.

Local media Haveeru reported the alleged scandal on January 7, but the story was removed within an hour of its publication online.

Shaheem has spoken several times to the media in recent weeks expressing Adhaalath’s discontent over the government’s reaction to demands made by religious protesters on December 23, 2011.

Asked whether the tape might be a set-up engineered for political purposes, Dhanish Nasheed insisted that it was not a set-up and that the station believed “something was definitely going on.”

In the video, currently available on Raajje TV’s YouTube channel, a camera at hip-level captures Shaheem speaking with a woman in a black hijab. Aside from her phone, watch and black bag, as well as a brief profile of her nose, no identifying features of the woman are visible during the film.

Shaheem smiles throughout the meeting, raising his eyebrows a few times in a playful fashion, and the two check their respective phones.

At one point the girl is directed to a water bottle behind the camera. The camera moves when she rises to take the bottle.

The meeting concludes when Shaheem takes the girl’s hand while circling around to sit next to her, just behind the camera’s view. The footage of the two holding hands appears to have been repeated several times, implying a longer grasp.  The two subsequently rise and leave the room.

Shaheem, who has been identified as one of the world’s top 500 Muslims by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, told Minivan News he would issue his comment on the matter at a later date.

“I do not wish to comment on matters regarding my private life while I am waiting for evidence. I will issue my comment when the time is appropriate,” he said.

Shaheem indicated that his work with Adhaalath Party has not been interrupted.

Police officials did not wish to comment.

In early 2011 a series of sex scandal videos were released implicating members of Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF) and the former Cabinet Secretary.

A police investigation was launched in response to the videos and several arrests were made, including minors. They have since been released, however the cases have not yet been prosecuted as the investigations are ongoing.

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Elections Commission demands Gayoom explain allegations of “vote rigging”

The Elections Commission (EC) has forwarded a letter to the Former President Maumoon Abdul requesting he clarify his claim that “election results do not turn out the way people vote”, as the remarks have raised public concerns over the commission’s integrity.

Elections Commission President Fuad Thaufeeq said on Sunday that the commission was “shocked” to hear the remarks and wanted to understand the reasons as to why Gayoom made such a claim.

Fuad said that the comments implying vote rigging have “provided reason for people to look at the commission with doubt” as it came from the former President, who had many supporters and currently leads the third largest political party in Maldives.

“So we have sent a letter to Gayoom today requesting he clarify his remarks” Fuad said.

Gayoom made the remarks at a meeting of the Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM) on Thursday, after reiterating the PPM interim council’s decision to advice against MP Abdul Raheem Abdulla’s intention to resign and contest for the Laamu Fonadhoo seat on a PPM ticket.

“I know that if he resigns he will be re-elected on a comfortable majority on a PPM ticket,” Gayoom said. “I don’t doubt that at all. However, we know the state of affairs in the country right now – election results do not turn out the way people vote. So what are we going to do?”

Under parliamentary rules of procedure, only parties that contested and won parliamentary elections can be officially represented in parliament.

He added that PPM would be officially recognised by parliament when it resumes in March.

MDP

The ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) meanwhile released a statement yesterday condemning Gayoom’s remarks, contending that it was an attempt to “bring the Elections Commission, an independent institution, into disrepute, turn the public against it and plunge the nation into a pit of discord and conflict.”

The statement noted that former Elections Commissioners were directly appointed by Gayoom while island chiefs “hovered around ballot boxes.”

Speaking at the MDP headquarters Haruge last night, President Mohamed Nasheed recalled that he was jailed for two years under the previous government for writing about alleged election fraud in a Sri Lankan newspaper.

Nasheed explained that the article pointed out irregularities in the results for a parliamentary election contested by current Vice President Dr Mohamed Waheed and former minister Ilyas Ibrahim, brother-in-law of President Gayoom.

In another election where Nasheed contested a seat in parliament in the late 1990s, “after the ballot box was kept in [presidential retreat] Aarah for three days, the results were announced with 300 votes between myself and [former minister] Abdulla Kamalludeen.”

Under the former government, Nasheed continued, there were cases where “more than double the population was supposed to have voted” and “people whose death had been confirmed was said to have voted.”

PPM rally

At Thursday night’s rally, Gayoom urged supporters to intensify efforts to double party membership ahead of its inaugural national congress in April.

While the EC currently lists the number of PPM members as 13,859 as of December 25, Gayoom revealed that the party was in the process of correcting administrative errors in forms returned by the commission, adding that “the true number of PPM members is over 20,000.”

PPM “is the future of the Maldives,” Gayoom continued, as it is the only party that could foster national unity and “get rid of the conflict, discord and enmity among the people.”

“Our only purpose now, and the focus of all our thought and capabilities, should be winning next year’s presidential election,” he said.

A PPM government would restore national unity, revive the spirit of working together and ensure economic prosperity, Gayoom said.

“Our government will not be one that takes revenge or offers opportunity to only certain people,” he continued. “[Our government] will not defame persons for political ends and expose them in parliament and media. Our government will not give over state assets and property to foreigners. Our government will serve the public in line with Islamic principles and through the democratic process.”

The number of days left “for the formation of this government” is now “765 days,” he said.

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