President Abdulla Yameen has stated that while the Maldives has “close ties” with China, “nothing will precede ties with India, which are far more precious”.
Yameen told Indian media during his recent official trip to the country, that he had assured its leaders that the bond between the two neighbouring countries is “heartfelt” and “based on sentiments”.
“India’s primary concern has been security in the region, particularly in the Indian Ocean and our views on the issues are exactly similar to India’s views. So it was not a difficult proposition at all.”
“We have agreed and we have exchanged views on areas of concern such as security, fighting against terrorism and fighting against piracy in the Indian Ocean. So we are largely to gain from these matters that are a concern to India while we share the Indian sentiments and we have totally endorsed them,” he continued.
“While we have had a slight rough patch with India, the time of good relations far outweigh the rough patches we had. I suppose it is easy for us to be on the right track again,” Yameen said, referring to the issues between the countries following the cancellation of the airport development contract with Indian infrastructure giant GMR.
“My trip here is the testimony to that fact. This is my first visit after I assumed office and India has been a gracious host to me. The Prime Minister of India has been very generous and kind. The talks were absolutely satisfying,” Yameen opined about the outcome of the visit.
The two countries agreed on numerous plans to strengthen bilateral defence and security cooperation, to increase and protect businesses and investments, as well as assistance in multiple development projects.
However, Yameen dismissed questions regarding rising religious radicalism in the Maldives, stating that “there is nothing to worry about at this time”.
“There are people with different thoughts. Very orthodox views. But that has not escalated into an issue of concern. It has not been a source of concern. But yes, India and Maldives, we have both agreed on our position against terrorism, on piracy in the Indian Ocean,” he continued.
“Islamic sentiments are a thing that people hold privately. I would not like to categorize that. This is however not an issue to worry about at this point in time,” he said.
As recently as May 2013, however, both the Chief of Defence Force Major General Ahmed Shiyam and then Attorney General Aishath Bisham warned of increased risks of terror attacks and of Maldivian youth enrolling in terror training camps.
In the same month, Reporters Without Borders labelled Maldives’ extremist groups as “predators of press freedom”.
Development project agreements
India and the Maldives have agreed to begin implementation of an agreement on cooperation in development projects signed in 2011 titled the “Framework Agreement on Cooperation for Development”.
The Agreement, signed during the administration of former President Mohamed Nasheed, mandates the establishment of a joint commission to oversee projects implemented under the programme, and a minimum of one annual meeting of the said commission.
A joint statement released by the two governments announced that the commission’s inaugural meeting will be held in 2014.
President Yameen stated on Monday that the ties between Maldives and India has been at their closest in the past 50 years during the time when his half brother and leader of ruling Party Progressive Party of Maldives Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was in power.
Yameen stated that the close ties are a direct result of Gayoom’s foreign policy, and the maintenance of mutual respect between the two countries since that time. He asserted that the current government will be re-implementing the foreign policy that Gayoom had made during his administration.
He stated that dignitaries from among India’s leadership had stated the same during the meetings held in his official visit.
Following Yameen’s return to the country on January 4, Gayoom made an official visit to the President’s Office on Monday to assure the government of unwavering cooperation and assistance from the ruling party.
The Jumhooree Party’s (JP’s) national executive council has decided to endorse Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) candidate Abdulla Yameen in the second round of the presidential election scheduled for November 16.
JP presidential candidate Gasim Ibrahim told the press following the council meeting that the decision was approved with a “comfortable majority.”
While the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) manifesto had a number of similarities with the JP’s, Gasim said the JP and PPM manifestos shared more in common.
Gasim said he hoped Yameen would be elected and appealed for his supporters to vote for the PPM candidate. The business tycoon added that he would participate in the PPM campaign.
Yameen, who polled 29.73 percent (61,295) in the first round of the presidential election, is due to face MDP candidate Mohamed Nasheed, who won 46.93 percent (96,747) of the vote, in a run-off election on Saturday after neither candidate reached the required 50 percent plus one vote.
Gasim finished in third place with 23.37 percent in the November 9 revote and announced the following day that the party’s council had decided not to back either candidate.
However, both the MDP and PPM had sought Gasim’s endorsement this week. Following a meeting yesterday with the PPM figurehead, former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, Gasim told the press that he would ask the council to reconsider its decision.
A number of JP, PPM and MDP supporters gathered outside the JP’s main campaign headquarters at Maafanu Kunooz while the council meeting was ongoing. The meeting lasted more than four hours.
While the JP council has 29 members, not all were present at today’s meeting.
Dhivehi Qaumee Party MP Riyaz Rasheed and Adhaalath Party President Sheikh Imran Abdulla were present before the start of the meeting at 4:15pm today. The pair left around 5:20pm.
Riyaz however returned around 6:15pm with JP council member and youth wing leader Moosa Anwar, who later tweeted that he was “proud to convince council members that Nasheed is not a choice.”
A dissenting JP council member, Moosa Rameez, tweeted shortly after the meeting that the JP council has “approved maintaining Maumoon’s family rule with 15 votes.”
The council reportedly decided to back Yameen with 15 votes in favour and five abstentions. The five who abstained were former Transport Minister Dr Ahmed Shamheed, JP President Dr Ibrahim Didi, Secretary General Hassan Shah, Moosa Rameez and Dr Hussain Rasheed Hassan.
JP Leader Gasim, who chaired the council meeting, reportedly did not participate in the vote or argue in favour of supporting either candidate before calling the vote.
Didi and Shah were formerly senior MDP members while Dr Hussain Rasheed was State Minister for Fisheries in the MDP government. Dr Shamheed had declared that he was “with President Nasheed in the second round” after the announcement of the provisional results on November 9.
JP’s Male’ City Council member Ahmed Hameed ‘Fly’ meanwhile alleged to local media that PPM bribed council members to influence the decision.
Speaking in the state broadcaster Television Maldives’ (TVM’s) Raajje Miadhu programme after the JP council decision tonight, Yameen expressed confidence of winning Saturday’s election with Gasim’s 48,131 votes.
The first round of the rescheduled presidential election yesterday (November 9) was peaceful, credible and “well-administered despite challenges,” NGO Transparency Maldives (TM) concluded following its observation of the polls.
“If you look at the statistics, the polling stations generally opened on time, closed on time, and the assisted voter turnout decreased from last time. So in general we found that this election has been very well-administered despite challenges,” TM’s Advocacy and Communications Manager Aiman Rasheed said at a press conference last night.
TM’s key findings showed that 96 percent of polling stations closed by 4:30pm, assisted voters accounted for 1.4 percent of the total turnout, and voting was temporarily halted in 3.2 percent of polling stations, of which 85 percent of the cases were interventions at the direction of the presiding officer.
“There were reports that people were not able to vote because their names were not on the voter registry, but this affected very few cases (less than 0.35% of all voters). Out of those affected 23.1% complained at the polling stations that they were unable to vote at their designated polling location,” TM noted in a press statement.
In the annulled election on September 7, TM had found that people unable to vote because their names were not on the register accounted for 0.2 percent of all voters.
Elections Commission (EC) member Ali Mohamed Manik had said at a press conference yesterday that the most common complaint during voting was from people who were unable to vote due to “minor differences” or mismatches between the information on their identity cards and the voter registry.
As most cases involved minor spelling differences in addresses, Manik said the EC issued a circular in the afternoon to allow voting in such instances.
Although isolated cases of violence were reported at 1.8 percent of polling stations in yesterday’s election, “we are happy to report that this election has been peaceful,” TM stated.
“Where there were incidents of violence, they were reported to the relevant authorities, and we will be closely monitoring any further developments.”
While police had entered 14.5 percent of polling stations, in 84.4 percent of such cases, “interventions occurred at the invitation of the Presiding Officer as the rules allow.”
According to police media updates throughout the day, an individual who showed his ballot paper and another who photographed his were arrested in Male’, voting was temporarily halted for a ballot box in Majeedhiyya School after a person voted on behalf of an assisted voter, and people remaining at a polling station in the school after voting were removed upon request by EC officials.
Police were also informed of incidents where ballot papers were displayed or photographed in Haa Alif Baarah and Alif Alif Ukulhas.
In the final reported case, an individual was arrested near Thajudheen School in Male’ following a disturbance outside the polling stations in the school.
Credible
The TM statement meanwhile noted that “candidates were well-represented during the counting, making the process transparent and adding to its credibility.”
“Gasim Ibrahim was represented at 83.7% of polling stations during the vote count. Abdulla Yameen was represented at 85.1% of polling stations during the vote count. Mohamed Nasheed was represented at 91% of polling stations during the vote count,” the statement noted.
“Only 0.15% of ballot papers were disputed by the candidate/party observers during the counting process.”
The TM statement also expressed appreciation and gratitude to “the 400+ observers and volunteers in our observer network, based in 20 atolls and a number of foreign countries.”
“We are confident in the results that we shared with the international community, with the media, and our findings indicate that there was no systematic fraud on election day on September 7,” he said.
Following allegations of vote rigging in the wake of the annulled polls, TM issued a statement urging “all actors and institutions to refrain from undermining the integrity of and confidence in the election day processes without credible evidence of fraud.”
Illegal campaigning
The EC meanwhile noted at its press conference yesterday that complaints were submitted regarding campaigning after the 6:00pm cut-off point on Friday (November 8).
Mass text messages in the names of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) candidate, former President Mohamed Nasheed, were reported in the morning on voting day.
The text messages originated from a number in India.
“To PPM’s [Progressive Party of Maldives] beloved members. Only Gasim [Ibrahim] can stop Islam being destroyed through Nasheed and the selling off of Maldivians’ freedom,” read a text message in the name of the PPM figurehead.
“I have not been able to do anything well apart from protesting on the street. Am I fit to be the ruler of the nation?” asked a text message in the name of the MDP candidate.
EC member Manik noted that complaints regarding the text messages as well as other campaign activities during voting were received by complaints bureaus, adding that the commission was unable to do much apart from requesting the communications authority to block the numbers.
PPM candidate Abdulla Yameen said at a press conference last night that he believed the fake messages in the name of Gayoom would have adversely affected the outcome.
This is a brief sketch of how over a period of 10 years, one set of background assumptions has been replaced by that of another.
How that of system building & primacy of democracy has been replaced by seizure of power by any means necessary and scorched earth tactics, regardless of impact on democratic institutions.
How reverence for democracy has been replaced by deceptive cynicism and manipulation.
How an old idea about an objectified, malleable subject has returned with a vengeance in a new form to replace active, vigilant, citizenry.
These combine together to create two different sets of values that are in conflict for supremacy. There are many different versions of this story. This is the version I find most compelling and convincing.
At times these sets have been shared across the political spectrum by various degrees, but as I write, the contrast could not be any sharper. A few days ago, a JP coalition partner speaking at the H.Kunooz podium hailed the Supreme Court’s decision to suspend elections, until they complete their inquiry into the process, as progress for democracy.
If we take this event as an isolated instance, it may seem to an outside observer that we should not be worried about a fair judicial inquiry in to the process. This was perhaps the United States’ stance, when it declared that all should respect the “judicial process”.
But we cannot isolate that instance from everything else that has happened, and is happening. It is hard to accept for us that Supreme Court has accepted a case with outrageous and ridiculous claims in good faith. The Supreme Court is not a wholly independent institution. It too has a history, a memory, and power relations, that it cannot extricate itself from. The same goes for every other democratic institution in the country.
We must also learn to recognise the fundamental shifts that have taken place – of behaviours, attitudes and values, driven by ideology – to a position where previous agents of democracy now wish to dismantle the entire framework. We must understand how things came to be. I write this because there are choices to be made, choices that will shape our future to come.
The last decade
Our story begins 10 years ago on a sunny September day like this, when we struck by the news of murder and killing in Maafushi Prison installation. The shock was followed by rioting and civil unrest in Male, as disenfranchised citizens took to the streets to torch & burn. In retrospect, this may be hard to understand, but if you were there, born in that system, felt the weight of oppression, of a present without a future, of walled enclosed horizons, it was hardly a matter of choice. This was perhaps not the beginning of voices calling for democracy, but provided the impetus for action, and represents a turning point in our history.
That September day led to the formation of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) in Sri Lanka, and their campaign to bring democracy to the Maldives. By June of 2004, just seven months into the MDP’s campaign, President Gayoom had shuffled his cabinet, brought in some fresh blood – known then as New Maldives (Hassan Saeed, Jameel and Ahmed Shaheed) – and then went on TV to give a very brief statement. He claimed “… [I] too were a reformer”, followed by a list of things he wished to change.
What followed was a long drawn-out process. Under constant pressure from the MDP, Gayoom conceded on a number of issues and new democratic spaces opened — a Special Constitutional Majlis was assembled for drafting a new constitution, political parties were allowed to operate, and for the first time in our history a free press was allowed.
This process of democratization has been described, following Huntington, as “transplacement” – a process of negotiation between actors in the establishment and those challenging that establishment. But for our purposes, I think it is important to understand the motivations and specific strategies employed by Gayoom’s regime to ward off the MDP’s threat of destabilizing the autocratic regime.
Gayoom bolstered the police with a new division called Special Operations to counter the threat of street protests. For the Majlis and Special Majlis, he had the advantage of using his network of loyalists across the atolls to elect the candidates he wanted. All in all, his overall strategy was to absorb demands made by citizens, make cosmetic changes and render them passive long enough for him to survive – known in Gramscian terms as “transformism”. Interestingly, the group called New Maldives would move on to other activities that would closely resemble Gramscian tactics, like recruiting intellectuals to their cohort.
Gayoom campaign poster from 2008 / image from flickr — sujaa
The motivations for the Gayoom programme seem to have been to make as minimal changes as necessary, survive as long as possible, re-invent his image as father of democracy, and win the presidential slot. Underlying these is a fundamental shift in behaviour and attitude towards politics. Whereas pre-2003 Gayoom did not need to reinforce and bolster his democratic credentials (brute force did the work of convincing), now he had to refer back to democratic values and associate himself with it, however minimal his interpretation of democracy was.
Prior to 2003, his ideological platform was built on a strong cohesive, homogeneous version of religious nationalism – of harmony and unity – which left little room for diversity of opinion. Now he had to concede that freedom of speech was fundamental to the creation of a modern state.
In effect, Gayoom was responding to a set of assumptions he had — that Maldivians wanted a democratic state, that democratic values were on the ascendancy and gaining primacy, and that his autocratic regime was no longer sustainable in its current form because his ideological notions of nation and religion (Islamo-Nationalism hinged on his version of modernist Islam) were losing ground. Democracy and its related set of values were values he had to respond to, even if he had not assimilated them.
Adhaalath party officials / image from times.mv
Meanwhile, the MDP’s camp attracted a diverse range of actors with disparate backgrounds — victims of the autocratic regime, the disenfranchised, the educated middle-class, etc. All perhaps, bound through by one nodal point – one basic idea — that Maldives needed democratization , and that was the discursive centre around which much of debates happened. There certainly were differences within MDP and it’s associates, but that basic idea remained primal.
This back and forth between MDP and the autocratic regime opened up the space for other actors in the Maldives as well. Among these were Salafists and similar groups, which had long been victims of Gayoom’s oppression. The opening of participatory politics, paved the way for Islamist parties, with the formation of Adhaalath party.
Though Islamist groups appreciated their new-found freedoms, some radicals remained skeptical of democracy itself, which they take to be an unsustainable ‘Western’ product that needs to be dislodged and replaced as soon as possible. These radical Islamists believed, and continue to believe, that there is no inherent value to sustaining a democracy – it’s value is only as a means for a theocracy to come.
Dr. Mauroof with George Galloway / image from twitter
There is always a danger in speaking of Islamist groups as one monolithic bloc that we stereotype and associate with anti-democratic radicalism and extremism. This would be fundamentally wrong. Even among the Salafists and Islamists there remain quite a large number of people who see an inherent value in democracy, and democratic values like freedom of press and speech.
This could hardly be true for Adhaalath, and its ideologists. Between 2003 and 2008 – on websites like Dharuma, and Noorul-Islam – Adhalaath’s main proponents continued to bash democratic values, human rights, and what they saw as ‘westernization’. This was at a time when Adhaalath remained quite marginal politically. Their numbers hardly registered in elections. But since they comprised of all the educated elite within the Islamist discourse, they had direct impact on public opinion on Islamic issues. Adhaalath combined this with the ideological notion they popularized, that Islamic matters must be addressed only by Islamic scholars – giving them a small but significant foothold from which to shape politics.
Yet, in Adhaalath’s strategy there was a momentary dialectic tension — even as they bashed democratic values and human rights, they were tacitly affirming democracy in their practice, by giving sermons and speeches, by forming associations, by forming parties, by holding debates, and opinion forming councils. More explicitly, they were embracing a limited form of democracy – a polyarchy within themselves where the educated elite or sheikhs were freely forming opinions , and debating and dispersing those opinions, which could be described in Islamic terms as shura. This was hardly possible before, under Maumoon’s brutal regime. There were perverse limitations to this opinion forming process, of course, but that is another article altogether.
“Wathan Edhey Gothah” Coalition from 2008 / image from flick — firax
In addition, Adhaalath’s position was conflated with struggles over identity (“West vs. us”, “true Muslim”, “modernity vs. a return”, etc) and struggles between Islamic discourses. What this means is that, at any given moment, they must factor in multiple variables in their calculation, of which being democratic or not, is just one variable. Hence Adhaalath’s position is not simply reducible to the binary, anti-democratic vs. pro-democratic.
In the second round of the 2008 presidential elections, Adhaalath joined up with the MDP as did Hassan Saeed, Ibra, and Gasim. The MDP won the elections and Mohamed Nasheed took over as president in a smooth transition of power. This was the first free and fair elections to take place in the Maldives, and an important step forward for democratic consolidation.
Even though the MDP, the main proponent of democracy, had just 25% of the popular vote in this first round, this show of solidarity by the various parties, with different ideologies against the autocratic regime, was important ideologically for democracy itself.
Progress stalled
In the ensuing years much of the debate would be framed through the language of liberal democracy, debates centered on the issue of whether that certain problem was of nature democratic, constitutional, corruption, etc. In the background, democratic ideology had been asserted as primal — that which shapes values, behaviours and attitudes.
Chief Supreme Court Justice Faiz / image from Raajje News
Meanwhile, other institutions of democracy were making progress. There were multiple free newspapers, magazines, TV channels, radio stations, civil society groups were forming, independent commissions were formed, and most importantly a free and fair election had been completed. Yet, within three short years there would be a dramatic reversal.
Gayoom left behind a vast network of loyalists that still paid him tutelary respect within the government machinery, police and military. In addition, the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) – Gayoom’s party – and it’s allies would make inroads by taking the majority in the Majlis elections which was to affect the composition of the Supreme Court, where the majority is held by old Gayoom loyalists. In effect, Gayoom still cast a vast grey shadow over Maldives, and had indirect control over institutions.
Civil Service protest / image from Minivan News
Nasheed’s reform efforts were hampered from the very outset due to the worsening global economic crisis in 2008/2009. Tourist inflows slowed, and the government was left holding a huge deficit. At the recommendation of the IMF, Nasheed would initiate plans to reduce and control civil service costs — his first run-in with a major Gayoom clientele.
Nearly 40% of all employment in the Maldives is created within the civil service, and it’s rumoured that no government has ever been able to gauge its true finances. Because of this large bureaucracy, some have described Maldives’ situation as a Rentier State.
A Rentier State is a state with a large source of revenue from natural resources, such that it is not dependent on tax from its citizens. The corollary to that is the government uses this inflow to create a dependent bureaucracy for employment, and a large military to pacify its citizens. Thus the theory says, because the government does not tax its citizens, citizens cannot make direct demands from the government, and in case they do, the government will use the huge military to silence their voices. This amounts to a very persuasive explanation of the long and stable thirty year dictatorship of Gayoom.
Following the economic crisis, attempts to change the civil service salary structure would backfire as the civil service association took the government to court. The economic crisis also affected small businesses, civil society, and the free press, and as media sources dwindled, the gap would be filled by media funded by resort owning oligarchs, primarily Haveeru, Sun, DhiTV, DhiFM & VTV.
Dollar transaction / image by @subcorpus
These resort-funded media outlets, and Gayoom’s political parties, worked hand-in hand and together would leverage the disaffection during the dollar crisis to form a bulwark against Nasheed & the MDP. Working with the media, using the Majlis and the Supreme Court as instruments, Gayoom’s loyalists would manufacture issue after issue, to which the MDP could not adequately respond. We can recall here a number of issues like the introduction of GST, Aasandha, and many others. In the worsening crisis – economic and political – the MDP lost crucial voting blocs, most significantly in Male’ (as has been evident in the first round of 2013 Presidential elections).
It’s important to note the transitions in background values, behaviours and attitude that occur at this point with the consolidation of media sources funded heavily by the resort owning oligarchs, and in the way these media were used, between 2009/2010.
DhiTV screenshot showing EC members, with their heads upside down / image from twitter @mideyalvarez
With the twilight of Gayoom’s oppressive era circa 2003, a number of media outlets came into being. What these new sources brought was the idea of an active citizen, who would inform themselves of issues, join debates, and challenge the status quo. The background idea was of liberation from chains, awakening from darkness, and activity against passivity, apathy and lethargy. The idea hinged on the potential capacity of these citizens to free themselves, to know right from wrong and decide for themselves.
What the resort owning oligarchs brought back circa 2009/2010 was the idea of a top down bullhorn – a blunt object to manipulate an objectified, malleable, subject, but with a slight twist that was different from Gayoom’s. The notion was that listeners or viewers had no independent capacity to form opinions of their own, and would be receptive to the way media primes and conditions them with their language. They were careful to use the language of democracy, to manipulate conditions in favour of the resort owning oligarchs.
In this way they would demand action against Nasheed’s administration. In other words, they were mobilising crowds to protect the status quo that benefits the resort owning oligarchs. They would manufacture crises in order to claim that such and such were “unconstitutional”, against “free speech”, etc. Unlike Gayoom, they were no longer demanding passivity, but using liberation language to undermine democratic institutions. They were undermining democratic institutions, but were using the language of democracy. It was blatantly cynical and manipulative.
Sheikh Imran / image from Haveeru
Democratic reversal
The next turning point in our story would come late in 2011, with Adhaalath leaving Nasheed’s administration, joining the opposition and the formation of the 23 December Ithihaad. This turn brought with it a whole new language, and would fundamentally change and eject the primacy of democratic ideology. The battle ground would shift from a terrain where “democracy was the only game in town” to one where democracy itself had to battle an anti-democratic Islamo-Nationalism.
The new Islamo-Nationalism that was emerging was nothing similar to the old Islamo-Nationalism of Gayoom. One has to make the distinction here, that this ideology that was emerging was quite different from all the things that had inspired it. It was in a sense determined by a number of movements, histories and trends, and situated firmly within the particularities of our politics. Adhaalath brought with it the language of globalist Salafism, and political Islam. Yet, what they preached on the podiums had little to do with Salafism – it was addressing a Maldivian subject, within the confines of a Maldivian history, promoting a particularly Maldivian political project — that of challenging Nasheed.
Gayoom’s progeny, Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) & DRP, brought with it the memory of a stable thirty years, and used the language of nationalism — sovereignty, independence, militarism, harmony, unity, etc. The 23rd December Ithihaad that emerged used our collective memory and fears, promoting xenophobia and isolationism. The movement was in continuity with a certain history, also a discontinuity, and a break from our past.
Police and military inside the state broadcaster compound posing for a picture on 7th February 2012 / Image source unknown
The December 23rd Itihaad’s anti-democratic turn would come after the 7th February 2012’s coup d’état. Up until then, they were still using the language of constitutionalism, democracy and so on. But after the coup, not having much to rely on after pulling off an anti-democratic coup, and firmly challenged by the MDP, they would drop all pretense of being democratic, and rely solely on Islamo-Nationalism — that language of sovereignty, unity, harmony, Islamic identity, etc. They must have realized that it was a losing battle, and needed to alter the board itself, to survive. What we are left with is a severe reversal of the democratic project.
After the coup, Hassan Saeed was caught on tape saying that this was a “unique coup”. But there is nothing unique about the reversal of fortune for democracy in the Maldives, and it follows quite closely with cases studied in democracy consolidation literature. According to scholars who have studied democratic consolidation, where democratic transition takes place not through direct replacement, but in a negotiated transfer of power, old regimes continue to hold vested interests in state institutions and perverse informal institutions, as a guarantee against persecution. At times these old dictators have used these institutions to upend the democratic project. This is exactly the case in Maldives, where Nasheed was given a poisoned chalice.
Presidential Candidate Mohamed Nasheed speaking after runoff elections were halted by Supreme Court / image from flickr @dyingregime
In this post-election debacle today, what we are witnessing is an attempt by the members of the 23rd December Ithihaad at a systematic destruction of the last standing democratic institution — the electoral system.
The election was monitored by international bodies, the counting was done in front of party representatives. There are no significant issues with the voter’s registry. Yet, the counting was followed by VTV’s campaign to create doubt about the election results, as these media funded by resort owning oligarchs have done similarly in the past. The Supreme Court, infiltrated by Gayoom’s loyalists, has intervened and is deliberately delaying the runoff election. Adhaalath is using its ideological tools to campaign against Nasheed and Elections Commission. How this is a religious message is beyond me. The police and military are being deployed to pacify those demanding for an immediate runoff election.
The conclusion writes itself. We demand our right to vote!
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I was the little girl who lived in the same block. We played cricket together, stabbed banana trunks with home-made spears and baked cakes in recycled butter tins. I remember times when he carried me on his back, remember times when he dressed up in his colourful shirts and reeking of ‘atharu’ (perfume), went out on his evening sojourns. He was a Don Juan, tall for his age, with laughing eyes and thick, wavy hair. Girls could not resist him and he could not resist trouble.
He was only five years older than me, but when I met him on that unforgettable day, several years later, there was an eternity of age and distance separating us. What was left of his hair was falling in untidy strands round his dirty shirt-collar. He was obese, embarrassingly so. Myself, sanitised by three decades of the good life in the West, jumped to conclusions. Too much grease, too little care…
Then, tears welled up in his eyes. They cascaded down his unkempt face. He shook. He stuttered.
I was utterly unprepared for my first experience of talking face to face with a victim of the regime: the horror of solitary confinement, the nights in the lagoons, the near-drownings, the chains, the mental and physical torture, the bodily deterioration, and the ensuing mental breakdown of those who displeased the dictator. In subsequent years I was to listen to numerous such narratives with a common theme, a callous disregard for people and the violation of human life and dignity as evidenced by the killing of Evan Naseem.
I am convinced that a relapse into the darker days of our history, by an election win to the Gayoom/Yameen regime, will set in motion a greater level of atrocities than was my generation’s heritage. We were sheltered. We were politically naïve. We did not question.
Today, there is huge opposition to the regime. They are articulate, determined and unprepared to put up with the whims of a regime struggling to come to terms with the realities of the 21st century. If the regime is reinstated, it would cope with this opposition in the way it’s accustomed to. The level of atrocities will rise exponentially. Our country and our heritage will finally and unequivocally decline and settle into a corrupt and violent police state. The events of February 7th, 2012, and the wave of state condoned violence which followed, should be a real reminder to us to reflect and cast our votes wisely.
Those of us who remember the way we were, the Maldives of old, must approach this second round of the presidential elections with our eyes wide open. There are ethical and practical issues that we should consider.
Over 30 years of Gayoom’s rule made sure that generations of young people grew up with nothing to aspire to. While it is clichéd to say that the youth is the future of a nation, there is no denying that the physical and mental health of this group is the best indicator of a nation’s economic and human potential. Over thirty years of neglect has left Maldivian youth hopeless and alienated. Is it any wonder they flock to the MDP? They see the alternatives: unemployment, drugs, corruption, drugs, nepotism, drugs, a police state, drugs…
It is a matter of public knowledge that among large numbers of the youth population, drug abuse is a way of life and young gang members are hired to do the dirty work of the adults. Again and again one hears the accusation that this is a deliberate strategy – bread and circus – in a different and more insidious guise. It is the application of a philosophy as old as the Romans, but it is not often that a society turns inwards to deliberately create an underclass. People of my generation, who have known better days, have a part to play in making a political decision that would stop the perpetuation of this cruel indifference.
Another pressing concern of the nation is the dysfunctional judiciary. Easily accessible news headlines speak for themselves: ‘Judiciary’s Angst on Reform’, ‘Maldives’ Judiciary- Unreformed and Unrepentant’, and more recently, ‘Maldives Supreme Court Judge Ali Hameed with Russian and Sri Lankan prostitutes’. How can we forget that it was three decades of authoritarian dictatorship that totally vitiated the judiciary?
Gayoom’s iron fist still controls the judiciary. It is inconceivable to think that a return of PPM would lead to any positive improvements in a justice system that is so corrupt that it is destroying the moral fabric of the Maldives.
The most telling comment one can make about the Gayoom/Yameen regime, however, is its sense of entitlement. The extravagant and ostentatious life styles exemplified by Theemuge and the flotilla of yachts that Gayoom used are also symbolic of their belief that governance is a free ticket to have it all, at the expense of others; what is in the state coffers is theirs by right. Entitlement, elitism, privilege are words that summarise their philosophy of governance. Conflict of interest is not a concept that is in the handbook of these Feudalists.
The regime is also infamous for its unbroken network of patronage; patronage and fear being the bedrock of its present power. The failure of PPM to produce a clear election manifesto on time highlights this attitude. Why write down promises for people to check and analyse when the intention to act on them is not there?
Entitlement seems a soft criticism. So what if some people think they are born to rule? But in the case of the regime, Gayoom and Yameen, this belief has become the fundamental driving force of their entire existence. Greater than their belief in capitalism, greater than their belief in democracy, greater than their belief in the Maldives, they simply believe they are born to rule – and that they MUST rule. If they cannot rule then they are no one. Within the Gayoom political tribe there is no existence without rule. They must rule to exist.
Narcissism is an evil sickness. It is this evil sickness that explains so much about the Gayoom coterie.
It explains why they have no detailed policy. They don’t need one; they are born to rule. It explains why they use corrupt means; when you are born to rule the end justifies the means. It explains why they will use violence; when you are born to rule then others have no rights, and must not share in the right to rule. It explains their vitriolic and personal attacks on their opponents, particularly of a religious nature; when you are born to rule, those who oppose you are unworthy of, not just humane, but human, consideration.
Gayoom’s sense of entitlement clarifies many seemingly strange actions and beliefs.
It is an understatement to say that what Gayoom/Yameen and PPM stand for is fundamentally detrimental to the Maldives. The abbreviation itself is a perverse contradiction of the truth. There is nothing progressive about the type of governance they will bring. Burma, under the clutches of a military dictatorship is making tentative steps towards democracy. Even China is beginning this process by introducing elements of freedom into their economic program.
Those who vote for the return of the regime must consider the fact that it is a vote to move the nation backwards, towards a dictatorship and a style of government that is not viable in the 21st century. In Gayoom’s era it might have been viable. For fifty years, we saw the same style of rule in Africa and Central America in the form of violent, bloody dictatorships. But things are changing in these countries. Can the Maldives let itself be turned into a 20th century Trujilloistic dictatorship just because the regime believe they were born to rule?
Apart from the moral reasons to avoid a return of the regime, there are practical reasons why we should not let that happen; the most important being our self-interest.
For its economic existence, the Maldives relies on its middle class, its business class, not on five or six big wealthy families, but on hundreds, perhaps thousands of small entrepreneurs. In every society these business people form the basis of the economy and the economy is the foundation on which society is formed. This middle class grows out of today’s youth. No modern society can exist without a vibrant, healthy, youth demographic being allowed to thrive.
Throughout the western and eastern worlds, countries are bemoaning the fact that their ‘youth’ are no longer able to be their future workforce, their future entrepreneurs, their future taxpayers, or their future heads of families. Societies rely on their youth to take over the burden of care for the old and the education of the young in the future. Here in the Maldives, the Gayoom/Yameen regime has targeted this group as their sacrificial lambs. They believe only in themselves.
Whilst I would like to think that no right minded person could ever support the regime with its horrifying track-record, I know this is untrue. There are some reasonable people who support them. Some of these do not receive bribes or inducements. Some of them are not under threat. Why do they support such a blood thirsty regime? I think the answer is simple. They believe that with the reinstatement of the old regime, the old economy will resurrect itself and they will prosper.
This is not so. Under a new Gayoom/Yameen dictatorship, the economy will move backwards.
Nepotism will prosper again. In a tightly controlled dictatorship, only family and close friends can be trusted. The rich and the elite who have everything to gain from the status quo will be rewarded, thus stifling innovation by the large majority of ordinary people. Much of the nation’s wealth will shift off shore.
No society can exist like this. The Gayoom/Yameen regime is so blinded by its own vision of their family’s right to rule that they are prepared to rule over a nation that has been deliberately disintegrated back into feudalism; so long as they rule it.
I find it a delicious irony that in the first round, large numbers of us have already voted in favour of ‘Aneh Dhivehi Raaje’, and the old dinosaur, the dynasty dreamer, is plodding behind to catch us with nothing new or appealing in his box of tricks. There is a famine of details in their policy documents. Produced four days before the presidential election, it did not show any budgetary provisions for its promises.
Perhaps the Adhaalath Party would pray for wells of gushing oil to finance Yameen’s plans, or faithful elements in the police and MNDF would come to the rescue, should the peasants complain! A leopard cannot change its spots, or perhaps more appropriately, a crow, cursed or otherwise, cannot change its raspy call to anything more endearing. A Gayoom/Yameen regime will uphold the same values that have already caused irreparable damage to the social fabric of our nation.
It will be business as usual. They have already proven to us that they are capable of doing awful and destructive things to this country and its people. We are yet to recover from thirty years of cruelty, abuse of the nation’s wealth, nepotism, lack of equitable development on the islands, and their frightening disregard for the plight of our youth. If the regime is given the mandate to govern again, even the most determined of our nation will not be able to pick up the pieces and rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes.
Prison did not kill my friend; he died of ‘natural causes’. But prison did kill him. I have lived long enough to appreciate that death has many faces. It is not simply a final breathe. It is also a slaying of the spirit, a denial of dignity and a hiatus of hope. To me personally, my childhood friend remains a symbol of this nation: betrayed, neglected, justice denied and potential unachieved.
September 28th may be the country’s last chance.
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]
The Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) held a rally on Friday night to celebrate the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party’s (DRP) support in the second round of the presidential election.
Jumhooree Party (JP) founding member Ahmed ‘ADK’ Nashid and Maldives Reform Movement leader Dr Mohamed Munavvar – also the former MDP chairperson – also announced their support for the party at the rally, attended by several thousand supporters.
DRP leader Thasmeen Ali, MPs Abdulla Mausoom, Visam Ali, Mohamed Nashiz, Rozaina Adam and other members of the party attended the rally held in the Alimas Carnival area of Male’.
Making the opening statement, MDP Chairperson ‘Reeko’ Moosa Manik asserted that, despite rumours allegedly being spread by political competitors, the two parties had not formed a coalition, and that the DRP had merely decided to back the MDP and to provide assistance in winning the upcoming second round of the election.
The DRP had gone into the first round in coalition with incumbent President Mohamed Waheed.
Speaking at the rally, DRP leader Ahmed Thasmeen Ali said that the party had made the decision based on the overwhelming support that the MDP had received in the September 7 election.
“I assure you that I stand here today with sincerity to ensure MDP succeeds in the coming election, God willing I will stay dedicated to achieving this,” Thasmeen began, prompting a standing ovation from the gathered supporters.
“This country is changing at a very fast pace. This country is going forward, swiftly forward,” he continued, borrowing MDP’s campaign slogan for the second round.
“I don’t believe that anyone can inhibit these tides of change. We have clearly seen the results of the first round of elections. President Nasheed and MDP got 95,000 votes. This is a huge achievement, and incredible success, and I congratulate you all for it.”
“We fully accept the results of the first round. There is no indication that any foul play was involved. I believe that if one fails, one must accept it and learn to digest the loss. In my opinion, it will be irresponsible for any politician or party to not back one of the candidates who are to contest in the final round of this election,” Thasmeen said.
“I want to see the democratic system strengthened and maintained”
“We must think deeply about the two candidates. I thought about which candidate would prioritize national interest, about which candidate would least entertain thoughts of revenge. There is no question in my mind about who that is, it is doubtless MDP’s candidate Mohamed Nasheed,” he stated.
“After taking office in 2008, Nasheed did not act towards his opponents with any intentions of taking revenge. On a single occasion, President Maumoon [Progressive Party of Maldives leader Maumoon Abdul Gayoom] was summoned to the police office, but even then he was taken with all due official respect. Nasheed did not treat either Maumoon or his family with any vindictiveness,” he said.
“The democratic system that came in 2008 with the new constitution is a system that we want to maintain, both then and now,” said Thasmeen – who had contested in the 2008 presidential elections as Gayoom’s running mate.
“A president elected by the people’s vote will take oath. The people will ensure this. The people will not let anyone do this in any other way,” he said, criticizing PPM running mate Dr. Mohamed Jameel Ahmed’s statement in a rally held last week that Nasheed will not be allowed to take office even if he wins the second round of elections.
“I also worked with Gayoom during the reform process which began in 2005. I did so believing that he will stop ruling with autonomy and will step aside and hand over the reigns of the country to a new generation. However, in light of his actions since losing the 2008 elections to date, we have realized that all along his intentions had been to prolong his 30 years of rule. That is not something that will benefit this country, and that is not what the people want today, or even then. We must not give him space to do so,” Thasmeen explained.
“I am standing at this podium tonight and supporting Nasheed because I want to see peace in this country after these elections, because I want to see the democratic system strengthened and maintained. Because the country will not see development unless democracy is upheld. For these reasons, Nasheed must be elected in these elections,” Thasmeen said.
“I believe that it would be an irresponsible and cowardly act to back away from doing what must be done to ensure that democracy is upheld in this country due to some words I might have said in the past. And therefore, tonight I assure all of you that DRP will do everything we possibly can to help Nasheed win these elections. I will stand firm in actively doing whatever is needed of me to reach this goal. We will join campaign activities, and you will see us participate in all campaign events,” he continued.
“God willing, Candidate number one, MDP’s Mohamed Nasheed will take the oath of presidency on Monday, November 11, 2013,” said Thasmeen, concluding his speech to loud applause.
Thasmeen’s speech was followed by similar pledges of support for democracy and the MDP from the other new faces, including MP Rozaina Adam, Dr. Mohamed Munavvar and former Ahmed Nashid.
The last speaker at Friday’s rally was Mohamed Nasheed, who thanked all those who are now extending support to the party, before echoing the pledges and plans included in the party’s manifesto.
This article first appeared on DhivehiSitee’s Election 2013 hub. Republished with permission.
From sky level to sea level, looking through the thickly paned and weathered openings of a rumbling fuselage, vivid colors zoom into focus around tiny islands loosely connected by a vibrant underworld of coral reef. An awe-inspiring sight. Yet lately, not even the mesmerizing beauty of this far-away island chain can mask the recent and unsightly chain of events that has left democracy stranded in the rising waters of political turmoil. Despite its small size, the Maldives is one of those places that have huge significance in terms of social justice (think Iceland, Cuba, Denmark, Bolivia). The 2012 coup there, now eighteen months long, gives us reason to reflect.
Here’s what happened in the Maldives and why we think it needs attention.
February 6-8, 2012 – Democratically-elected President Mohamed Nasheed delivers a sudden and unexpected resignation on live television. August 30, 2012 – The British Commonwealth-backed Commission of National Inquiry (CONI) investigation surprises the world by finding the transfer of power from Nasheed to his vice president Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik to have been legal. September 7, 2013 – Presidential elections will take place, with both Nasheed of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) and Waheed, running as an independent, on the ballot.
Coups are among the ugliest of political phenomena, perhaps surpassed only by war, genocide, and famine. They closely parallel fraudulent elections in that both witness an assault on the rights of voters and the well-being of a nation by the powerful few. The upcoming elections in the Maldives have global significance, not just because of their contrast with the bloody aftermath of the July 3 deposing of Egypt’s president Mohamed Morsi in another Muslim society, but because – until his ouster – Nasheed and his administration were inspirational leaders in the global fight against climate change, lionized by young climate activists at a 2009 rally in Copenhagen with a banner addressed to Nasheed himself reading “You Are Our Global President.”
History counts: The Road to Democracy or Authoritarian Reversal?
In order to understand the recent assault on democracy in the Maldives it helps to know a little history. The country’s nascent democracy emerged from 850 years of rule by a Muslim sultanate overlaid, from 1887 to 1965, by British Protectorate status and then an uneasy transition from a constitutional monarchy to an independent republic in 1968. Of the many political struggles that have rattled the Maldives, one in particular stands out in relation to recent events: the rise and fall of the country’s first president in the early 1950s.
The story of President Ameen Didi’s year-long rule is worth briefly recounting, not only because it ended in the first Maldivian coup, but because it highlights the contested nature of economic and cultural modernization in the country. In the years leading up to 1953, change was brewing in the small island country. As a school principal and heir to the sultanate, Ameen Didi established the Maldives’ first political party, the Peoples’ Progressive Party, declaring education for women one of his main goals. When he was offered the sultanate, he stood up in Parliament and said “for the sake of the people of Maldives I would not accept the crown and the throne” ). After a referendum declared Maldives a republic, the people elected him president on January 1, 1953. He then set out to transform the nation, enacting policies that radically altered the social and political landscape. Taken by the grand boulevards of Paris, Ameen had his engineers cut roads through the center of the inhabited islands, literally paving the way for development (and upsetting the inhabitants).
On August 21, 1953 (coincidentally, just two days after the CIA-engineered coup in Iran), then-Vice President Velaanaagey Ibrahim Didi staged a coup against the president while he was abroad in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) for medical treatment. Ibrahim Didi took over with the help of Muslim conservatives in Malé, the capital city. When the unsuspecting Ameen Didi returned to the Maldives he was taken to Dhoonidhoo Prison Island. He escaped but failed to take back power in Malé, and was beaten so severely he nearly died. The coup makers banished him to internal exile in Kaafu Atoll, where his health quickly deteriorated. He died on January 19, 1954.
Fast-forward to the present day. The events leading to President Nasheed’s overthrow in 2012, while very different, unfold in the same political context of entrenched power and resistance to democratic modernization. Existing networks of powerbrokers put the legitimacy of his administration under scrutiny because he was viewed as progressive and posed a challenge to a social order shaped by centuries of sultanate rule and decades of dictatorship in the intervening years under Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who held power from 1978 to 2008. Gayoom styled himself president, head of the judiciary, and highest religious authority in the country, “winning” six elections in a row for the Maldivian People’s Party without an opposition candidate. As The Economist colorfully puts it: “For three decades until 2008 the country was run by Mr Gayoom, an autocratic moderniser who made the Maldives the wealthiest corner of South Asia by promoting high-end bikini-and-booze tourism (usually on atolls some distance away from the solidly Muslim local population). He also crushed dissent, let capricious and poorly educated judges make a mockery of the law, and allowed social problems to fester, notably widespread heroin addiction”.
After a series of imprisonments totaling six years (with eighteen months of solitary confinement and other tortures) for protesting the lack of democracy, journalist Mohamed Nasheed returned from exile to win the 2008 elections – the first fair and free direct elections in the history of the Maldives. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay noted the stakes: “Maldives will increasingly have a special role to play in the region and the Muslim world as it has pioneered a democratisation process that is both modern and Islamic…. This opportunity cannot be missed, for the benefit of Maldives and of the wider region”. Nasheed made good on the promise, delivering free healthcare, pensions for the elderly, social housing, improved transportation among the islands, and civil liberties such as freedom of expression and security of one’s person unheard of in the Maldivian context.
It is interesting to note that in Dhivehi, the native language of the Maldives, there is no word for democracy. It wasn’t until 2008, when Nasheed was running for president as candidate of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), that a Dhivehi equivalent for the term came into use. Nasheed ran with the slogan “Aneh Dhivehi Raaje” which translates into “The Other Maldives.” In the Maldivian language, the phrase is often used synonymously with of the English-language term “democracy.” If Nasheed reminds us of another political prisoner turned president, Nelson Mandela, the Maldivian equivalent to the scourge of apartheid would probably be the inexorably rising levels of the oceans. With 1,192 coral islands arrayed in a double chain of 26 atolls, the highest point in the Maldives is 2.4 meters above sea level – it is the lowest-lying country in the world, eighty percent of the land surface lying less than a meter above the ocean waves.
In October 2009, Nasheed grabbed the world’s attention by holding a cabinet meeting underwater, with ministers in scuba gear sitting at a table signing documents calling on all countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions: “We must unite in a world war effort to halt further temperature rises. Climate change is happening and it threatens the rights and security of everyone on Earth. We have to have a better deal. We should be able to come out with an amicable understanding that everyone survives. If Maldives can’t be saved today, we do not feel that there is much of a chance for the rest of the world” At the historic 2009 UN climate summit in Copenhagen, he declared Maldives’ goal of becoming the world’s first carbon-neutral country: “For us swearing off fossil fuels is not only the right thing to do, it is in our economic self-interest… Pioneering countries will free themselves from the unpredictable price of foreign oil; they will capitalize on the new green economy of the future, and they will enhance their moral standing giving them greater political influence on the world stage”. At the talks, he and minister of environment Mohamed Aslam carried the banner of the many frontline island nations most threatened by climate change, and their principled stand and frank exchanges stand at the center of Jon Shenk’s masterful 2012 film, The Island President.
The world’s climate justice and global justice communities woke on the morning of February 7, 2012 to the shocking news that Nasheed had “resigned” his presidency with the statement “I don’t want to rule the country with an iron fist…. Considering the situation in the country, I believe great damage might be caused to the people and the country if I remain President. I therefore submit my resignation as President of Maldives”. Within hours, scenes of Nasheed and MDP supporters in the streets of Malé protesting what they called a coup, and being beaten and arrested by the police and military, now firmly in the hands of his vice president, Mohamed Waheed, gave the world notice that the coup leaders had no such compunction. Waheed proceeded to dismiss the entire cabinet, named a who’s who of Nasheed’s political opponents to his own cabinet, and sought to put Nasheed on trial.
Support for the struggle against Nasheed’s departure was quickly voiced by the global climate justice community. Mark Lynas, author of ‘Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet’, wrote in the Guardian: “The deposed president is famous for his efforts to fight climate change, but his lifelong struggle has been for democracy – and now I fear for his safety” (February 7, 2012). Filmmaker Jon Shenk told the New York Times: “On Tuesday, we were stunned to learn that Mr. Nasheed was forced to resign his presidency under duress. Mr. Gayoom’s supporters had taken violently to the streets and put Mr. Nasheed in an impossible position: attack your own countrymen or resign. He once again followed his conscience and stepped down” (February 8, 2012).
The CONI Report: Judging the Legality of a Coup
The pushback in the streets and global airwaves forced the new government to announce on February 22 the formation of a commission to investigate whether the transfer of power had been legal. When in April it named the three-person group in charge, chaired by Gayoom’s former Defence Minister, Ismail Shafeeu, the transparent hypocrisy of a government investigating itself prompted the Commonwealth (Maldives joined in 1982) to pressure for the addition of more independent experts to the commission. This resulted in the addition of Ahmad Saeed to represent the MDP, and two international advisers, Professor John Packer from Canada for the United Nations, and Sir Bruce Robertson, a retired Court of Appeal judge from New Zealand, for the Commonwealth.
The climate justice world was shocked again on August 30, 2012, when the resulting CONI Report was finally issued, its conclusions stating:
The change of president in the Republic of Maldives on 7 February 2012 was legal and constitutional.
The events that occurred on 6 and 7 February 2012, were, in large measure, reactions to the actions of President Nasheed.
The resignation of President Nasheed was voluntary and of his own free will. It was not caused by any illegal coercion or intimidation.
There were acts of police brutality on 6, 7 and 8 February 2012 that must be investigated and pursued further by the relevant authorities.
Of these “findings,” we find the only true statement to be the last, and the called-for investigation has not taken place, despite repeated requests from the UN, Commonwealth, and Amnesty International.
The day before the report was issued, MDP representative Ahmed Saeed resigned in protest, alleging that it was based primarily on evidence gathered only by the three original members, while other crucial evidence was not pursued nor key witnesses recalled, and that some of the information and testimony provided the commission was not used in the inquiry. The Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma accepted the report’s conclusions on the spot, stating “I urge all concerned to respect the findings of the Commission so that, moving forward, all actions and reactions reflect the sense of responsibility and restraint necessary in the best national interest”. The United States and Britain welcomed the report, which received the tacit support of much of the international community, and recommended that Nasheed and the MDP turn the corner on the coup and look ahead to the 2013 elections (just days away as we write this).
International advisors to the CONI, John Packer and Sir Bruce Robertson, praised the commission’s work: “We have seen nothing but objective and independent professionalism in the institution. The Commission has sensibly and sensitively heard all who wanted to make a contribution. It has firmly and fairly held participants to telling what they had heard and seen for themselves and deflected them from conjecture and speculation without facts.” In a pointed reference to Saeed’s resignation from the Commission, they stated: “The nation has been well served by the Commissioners and any assertions of bias or lack of objectivity leveled against those remaining have no justification. They reflect badly on those making unfounded allegations”. One wonders what impact Waheed’s long career with the UN might have made on the perceptions of events by international outsiders.
The day after the report came out, Nasheed held a press conference, and observed: “Now we have a very awkward situation and in many ways very comical, where toppling a government by brutal force is taken as a reasonable course of action … accepted as long as it comes with an ‘appropriate’ narrative. I still believe CONI has set a precedent away from the simplicity of using ballots to change a government…. Peaceful political activity will continue, the CONI report is not the end of the line”.
We have had access to some of the above missing pieces, including MDP perspectives and several of the interviews conducted for the report. In addition, former minister of environment Mohamed Aslam generously consented to an interview when one of us visited the Maldives in May. We want to make the world aware of the fatal flaws in the report, and of the very real threats the Waheed government and other opponents of Nasheed pose to fair and creditable elections on September 7. Here are our findings.
We start with two independent legal evaluations of the CONI Report, both of which unequivocally find the report deficient. The first of these, “A Legal Review of the Report of the Commission of National Inquiry (CONI) Maldives,” was issued on September 6, 2012 by Ms. Anita Perera and Mr. Senany Dayaratne, lawyers working with the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, and Mr. Shibley Aziz, a former Attorney General of Sri Lanka. This document clearly rejects the CONI Report for its reliance on “evidence hastily gathered” while disregarding “[m]aterial and evidence of vital significance.” It concludes “there was in fact adequate evidence to suggest that duress (or even ‘coercion’ and/ or illegal coercion as used by CONI) is attributable to the resignation of President Nasheed, and as such, CONI could not have reasonably satisfied itself on objective criteria, that the specific pre-conditions necessary for a determination that President Nasheed resigned of his own free will, have been met”.
A second independent report considers the events in light of international law, and is based on facts independently gathered on a field trip to the Maldives. Issued on July 16, 2012, before the CONI Report, its title presages its main findings, “Arrested Democracy: The Legality under International Law of the 2012 transfer of power in the Maldives and alleged human rights violations perpetrated by Maldivian security forces.” Its authors, Dr. Anders Henriksen, Associate Professor of Public International Law at the University of Copenhagen, Legal Adviser and Deputy Head of Division at Danish Ministry of Justice Rasmus Kieffer-Kristensen, and Jonas Parello-Plesner, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, conclude that:
President Nasheed resigned as President of the Maldives under duress, and that his resignation cannot be considered voluntary or otherwise ‘in accordance with law’.
The revolt of the Maldivian Police and the seemingly unwillingness or inability of the Maldivian Military to restore law and order left the President with no choice but to accept the demand for his resignation that was put before him in mid-morning on February 7th, 2012. To the extent that a ‘coup d’etat’ can be defined as the ‘illegitimate overthrow of a government’, we must therefore also consider the events as a coup d’etat.
The Maldivian security forces have committed a number of human rights violations in the months that have passed since the transfer of power…. The acts of the security forces have had a “chilling effect” on the enjoyment of fundamental freedoms in the Maldives.
The CONI Report was fatally flawed from the start, pace Professor Packer and Sir Bruce, with the appointment of a commission consisting of three Gayoom loyalists. Two of them – the chair, Ismail Shafeeu (Gayoom’s former Defence Minister), and Dr. Ibrahim Yasir – were allegedly involved in hiding parts of the investigation report of 2003 Maafusi Jail shootings, an extremely important event in Maldivian history. The additions to the committee spurred on by condemnation of its biased composition did not overcome this bias: Justice G.P. Selvam of Singapore, who became co-chair of the CONI report with Shafeeu, rose through the ranks under the Lew Kwan Yew dictatorship, doing what the regime required against its political opponents and human rights campaigners. There are a number of Singapore-Maldives business partnerships involving Waheed’s current vice president, Mohamed Waheed Deen, and Maumoon’s former Foreign Minister, Fathuhulla Jameel with wealthy interests in Singapore. Also, it has been suggested that millions of dollars that were stolen from the Maldives by the Gayoom brothers, Maumoon and Yameen, and invested in Singapore.
Anatomy of a Coup, or, the Charging Bull at the Door
Coups don’t happen without a well-planned coterie of opponents of the government, a pretext and public perception that something has discredited the government, and the backing of the social forces that hold the means of violence. This scenario obtained in the cases of the tragic end of Chilean democracy on September 11, 1971, the July 2013 removal of President Morsi in Egypt, and the events of February 6-7, 2012 in the Maldives.
The political and economic allies of the long-running Gayoom dictatorship never accepted the results of the 2008 election, and through the whole of Nasheed’s tenure waged a dirty campaign to regain power. Imagine a United States in which the Green Party came to power through a well-executed grassroots campaign inspired by hope – real hope – that the ills of American society and politics could be frankly addressed. Then imagine what might happen in the following eighteen months – it would be money and violence against people power and openness. It would get nasty. This gives some idea of what Nasheed and the MDP were up against when they came to power in 2008.
To establish the full context of the events would require a detailed and lengthy analysis of the struggle for power between Nasheed and the political remnants of the Gayoom dictatorship, marked by a series of circumstances that include the consequences of the failure of the Judicial Service Commission, appointed after the 2008 elections, to set new standards for service as a judge, and the subsequent removal of pro-Gayoom Chief Justice of the Criminal Court, Judge Abdulla Mohamed, by Nasheed on January 16, 2012 (the judge had repeatedly failed to prosecute corruption cases against the elite, including Gayoom himself). The backlash to this from the pro-Gayoom parties and individuals took the form of a campaign to slander Nasheed as un- or even anti-Islamic. This touched off twenty-two consecutive nights of anti-Nasheed protests. A secret meeting of members of the opposition took place on January 31, 2012 at the residence of Nasheed’s Vice President Waheed at which they pledged their allegiance to him “and stated that President Nasheed was no longer considered ‘the legal ruler of Maldives’. In a quite extraordinary move, one of the leading opposition figures even called on the police and the army to also pledge their allegiance to the Vice-President ‘and not to implement any order given by’ the President”. Events moved very quickly after this.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then the competing artistic representations of the transfer of power could fill volumes. In August 2012, the government-backed Islamist Adhaalath Party organized an exhibition at the National Art Gallery, opened by President Waheed himself. Sixty pieces were displayed under the theme, “Fall of a regime: An Artist’s View,” all created by a single artist and painted over the course of just one month. Some of the paintings were direct copies of photographs with MDP colors and supporters omitted. This attempt to paint the “appropriate narrative,” as Nasheed had characterized the CONI report – literally mirroring the “timeline” of events released by original members of the CONI commission before the investigation actually took place.
In all likelihood, the Waheed-sponsored paintings were commissioned in response to an earlier announcement by MDP supporters who were independently planning an Exhibition of Public Inquiry (XOPI) at the grounds of the Malé City Council. The theme of this exhibit, “Truth Is Ours,” challenged the CONI narrative by giving space to a wide range of artists to reflect on the events leading up to and following the coup. One artist, Fazail Lutfi, explained: “I am participating because this is another venue to express my thoughts and feelings about the coup, freedom, liberty and justice. At a time when our freedoms to assemble and express are getting limited, this space suddenly becomes very important to me”. In contrast with the repetitive images of “peaceful” anti-Nasheed protests set against the whitewashed walls of the National Art Gallery, an ominous sculpture lingered at the XOPI grounds. The description reads: “Grasping to comprehend the reality of the situation and describe something so phantom and menacing in my head was the image of a charging bull at the door.”
The charging bull reared its ugly head again when charges were pursued against Nasheed for the alleged unconstitutional arrest of Judge Abdulla Mohamed under Article 81 of the Penal Code, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of three years in jail. If found guilty, Nasheed would have been banned from the upcoming elections that are now set for September 7, 2013, as well as any future elections in the Maldives. Both MDP supporters and the international community deemed the allegations politically motivated and an obvious attempt to prevent Nasheed from contesting the presidential elections. On March 28, 2013, Azim Zahir, from Transparency Maldives – a local NGO monitoring the elections – warned: “As was seen following the recent arrest of President Nasheed [on October 8, 2012], if he is prevented from running, violence will likely break out distorting the electoral environment if not making it inhospitable for democratic elections”. In a May 21, 2013 report, UN Special Rapporteur Gabriela Knaul expressed “deep concern” over the impartiality of the judiciary and the fairness of the proceedings against Nasheed.
On July 18, 2013, with mounting pressure from Transparency Maldives and the international community, the Elections Commission reluctantly accepted Nasheed’s candidacy. In a statement to the press, Nasheed said, “we have submitted the election forms and begin the task of restoring democracy to our country. It has been a slippery slope but we have come a long way. Despite all the barriers and hurdles that were put in our way, we never gave up.” As election day draws nearer, the streets of Malé city are paved with yellow confetti, the color of the MDP.
Maldives at the Crossroads
Maldives now stands at a crossroads where the people are being asked to choose between Nasheed, Waheed, and two other candidates with links to the Gayoom dictatorship and the Islamists – in effect a popular referendum on the CONI Report and the candidates’ competing visions for the future of the Maldives. Moreover, the whole process is unfolding in a “political context of crisis of legitimation, uncertainty of democratic transition, existing polarisations and other challenges that have been aggravated by the controversial transfer of power on 7 February 2012,” according to Transparency.
Nasheed’s campaign has been a model of grassroots organizing, literally a “Door to Door” campaign with a thousand volunteers committed to visiting every family in the country. Nasheed himself has touched all the main island groups in well-prepared meetings with the people, a detailed campaign platform, openness to the media, and by generating a massive amount of genuine passion and enthusiasm on the ground. The campaign reports that it has received pledges of votes from 125,000 of the 240,000 eligible voters in its door to door canvas, while registering thousands of new voters – the median age in the Maldives is 26 and the MDP’s campaign is by far the most media-savvy. “Statistics and the smiles of the people” portend victory, Nasheed says. All of this bodes well.
While the MDP has campaigned hard to secure the votes necessary to win in the first round, there are several factors to consider that could mitigate this outpouring of public support.
The MDP will have to win in the first round for Nasheed to be successful. The anti-Nasheed vote will be split among the three opposition candidates – Waheed, billionaire Gasim Ibrahim of the Jumhoree [Republic] Party, and Gayoom’s brother Abdulla Yameen for the Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM) — an advantage for the MDP. But if Nasheed fails to clear the 50 percent hurdle, it is probable that all three would ask their supporters to vote for the one still in the running on the second round, scheduled for September 28.
There is a danger that “irregularities” could occur in the election process. Leaving aside Gasim’s promises of an iPad and laptop for every schoolchild and other material goods for every family if he is elected, and the PPM’s unsuccessful effort to delay the election by claiming, without a hint of irony, that it is not free and fair process, there remain the unreformed institutions staffed by loyalists in the old regime or the current administration who will police, conduct, and investigate allegations of impropriety. Due to what appears to be sufficient attention from the United Nations, United Kingdom, European Union, and other observers, and the local efforts by Transparency Maldives, however, these elections seem set to be the most transparent yet.
The various dirty tricks of the opposition, which include attacking the MDP manifesto promise that the state will make a revenue of MVR 72 billion [US$4.6 billion] through the tax system as a set of empty promises (another irony in that the other three parties have failed altogether to put forth campaign platforms). The PPM has criticized Nasheed in the past for taking out international loans and competing political parties rally around the claim that Nasheed ran the Maldivian economy into the ground. There also remain the self-serving appeals to voters regarding Nasheed’s alleged lack of respect for Islam compared with the faith of his opponents.
The stakes are high. This may be Maldivians’ last chance to set out on the path of democracy again. In Chile, the Pinochet dictatorship traumatized a whole generation after the coup that brought him to power. This must not happen in the Maldives. Not only is the future of its people at stake, but the possibilities for a future of global climate justice will be affected by the outcome of this election and the parliamentary elections of 2014.
If Nasheed and Aslam represent the Maldives once again at COP19 UN climate summit in Warsaw this November, the balance of forces now tilted so heavily toward the 1%, and thus to the climate catastrophe dictated by their business as usual attitude, will shift—at least to some degree—back in the direction dictated by science and championed by 99.99 percent. All eyes should be on the Maldives on September 7. Let us not be caught unaware of what’s happening at this epicenter of the struggle for a better world.
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Former President and Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) presidential candidate Mohamed Nasheed is signing 1400 letters an hour in an attempt to mail a personalised letter to every single one of the Maldives’ 239,593 voters before Saturday’s election.
“He insisted on signing each one personally,” sighed a party official.
Nasheed continued this feat during a series of ‘one on one’ interviews with local and international media on Wednesday afternoon.
JJ Robinson: What’s with the letters?
Mohamed Nasheed: Our whole campaign has been very personal. I’m trying to reach out to the normal Maldives person. I’ve met them, I’ve touched them, I’ve visited their homes, and finally I want to write them a letter. When I’m signing them, I’m looking at the homes. I know who I am signing it to. I like that. I don’t think a printed version is appropriate.
I think the whole democratic idea is built on very Roman principles: individuals getting together and talking about things. When you go into mass media and mass organisation you lose the sense of doing something for a person. I think in good politics you do things for individuals.
JJR: The last time you came to power you were magnanimous in victory. You’ve since said this was a romantic idea that did not work in practice. How will you approach it this time if elected?
MN: I don’t think I can change overnight. I’ll still be the same person. I think it’s not viciousness that will bring justice. It is a process. We must strengthen the institutions, especially the Judicial Services Commission (JSC), the judiciary, especially the institutions associated with rule of law. We must increase their capacity to do things and reform them.
I would not come between any investigation of suspected wrongdoing. I think the main perpetrators must be brought to justice. Then again, it is very difficult to do these things to your political opponents. You are always mindful that if you stultify your position, that is not a good recipe for a vibrant democratic society.
Now it is getting very obvious that these opposing parties will come out with new leadership after these elections. I hope that the wrong-doers are brought to justice.
JJR: Given the immediate state of the police and judiciary, how do you propose such an investigation would be conducted?
MN: Well I’ve written to all the policemen and MNDF personally. The vast majority of them seem to believe that the coup was very, very wrong, and that their institutions got a very bad name out of it and they need to salvage their [institutions].
I feel there are enough people within these institutions who are of this view and want to investigate the wrongdoing. Previously when we were in government there was nobody [in the police or military] who wanted to reform this vigorously. But if you look at the top brass of the police, they may be out now, but I don’t think they should be outside. We will bring them in. I think they are very clear in their minds about what needs to be done.
JJR: Observers are asking how, even if you do return to power and given how swiftly your government fell on February 7, you propose preventing that from happening again?
MN: One thing is – the international community should not so be so naive or short-sighted. Please don’t fund coups. Please don’t encourage forceful change of government.
What we saw was a lot of evidence that the UN was busy at it. Instability comes because outsiders side with one faction or another. Just don’t do that.
JJR: What do you mean when you say the UN was ‘busy at it’?
MN: The [now reassigned] UN Resident Coordinator’s safety address in case of an issue on February 7 was the Vice President’s residence. I was shocked to learn that.
I felt the UN specifically wanted to recognise the new regime instead of conducting a proper investigation. They dragged the investigation out until they could cover it up. From the evidence we saw afterwards, especially from the government accountability committee in parliament, it is obvious it was a coup, and it is obvious that anyone should have seen it as a coup.
We should have gone for an early election instantly. We should not legitimise any forceful transfer of power. Right now the situation is that everyone believes ‘winner takes all’. [The impression is that] if you are the ruler, the UN and international community won’t give two thoughts about that and simply recognise whoever is holding power. That kind of attitude doesn’t help.
JJR: If you had the whole February 7 period again, on reflection is there anything you would have done differently?
MN: On the 7th? No. If you’re specifically talking about that day, no. In the lead up to it, yes. We have learned a lot of lessons from what led to this, the political nature of the police and military, and elements of the international community taking sides.
JJR: Many MDP supporters privately profess a sense of doom should you not win. Are the stakes really that high, and what sort of challenges do you think you would have in opposition?
MN: There is no doubt [we will not not win]. Not even entertaining that thought.
JJR: Given the high stakes then, what kind of concerns then do you have for the transition period of nearly two months?
MN: About a month back I had some concerns. But now I think there is enough inertia among the people so that this can be brought into proper alignment. There’s not a lot [the government] could do. I don’t see the military being able to do anything. There is enough support for us within the military, there is enough support for us within the police, it’s just the top brass [of concern], and they won’t have support among the rank and file. So we are fairly confident.
JJR: A lot of young Maldivians, particularly those aged between 18-25, those perhaps without direct experience of Gayoom’s rule in the 80s and 90s, give the impression of being politically apathetic. What kind of message would you give to these politically disengaged?
MN: Get involved. If you are not involved, you better not complain.
This is a multi-party participatory democracy, and there is room for everyone to make their views heard and get involved. I’m very encouraged that during these elections the bulk of the MDP’s campaign machinery has been run by young people. There’s a lot of people who are very involved.
Very often when your own personal viewpoint does not have resonance, you tend to become apathetic. It is not that you are politically apathetic, just that you sense that your viewpoint is not represented, so you go home.
We suggest – don’t do that. Come to us. We have room, and your voice is very, very necessary. And we need it.
JJR: Given that your government’s detention of the Criminal Court judge and efforts toward judicial reform were used to justify the protests in the lead up to February 7, how can you reform the judiciary from the position of the executive without risking this happening again, or without compromising the integrity of the three arms of state?
MN: We must reform the JSC. The police must have enough leverage to investigate wrongdoing. The police were aware of the brewing coup but were not able to investigate it. The Criminal Court was always obstructing that investigation. Primarily that was why the police felt that Abdulla Mohamed was a threat to national security.
In hindsight it was easy to understand why police were saying that, because left alone they felt there would be a coup. If the investigation was not done, and if these people were not apprehended, then police felt there would be a military coup. That is why they wanted to restrain certain elements.
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