WINDS of change are sweeping South Asia. After the peoples revolution in Nepal put an end to monarchy and ushered in a republic, it was the turn of the Maldives to bring about a new era of democracy.
In the countrys first ever multiparty elections held on October 8, President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, 71, won 40 per cent of the popular vote and polled the highest number of votes among the candidates. The Constitution mandated a minimum of 50 per cent votes, and a run-off became necessary between him and Mohamed Nasheed, 41, who came second. Nasheed, whom Gayoom had imprisoned a decade ago, became the combined candidate of the entire opposition, and in the run-off on October 28, he beat Gayoom by a 10 per cent margin.
The old order giving way to the new is perhaps just the beginning of a series of changes in the Republic of Maldives, a collection of nearly 2,000 islands and many lagoons nestled in coral atolls southeast of India. The President-elect is committed to holding the countrys first multiparty parliamentary elections in February 2009.
Though Gayoom is responsible for putting the Maldives on the world map as a tourist destination, his regime was marked by charges of nepotism and corruption. Dubbed Robert Mugabe by the opposition for his autocratic ways, he banned political parties and stifled dissent even as he periodically renewed his own mandate through elections with only one name on the ballot. Pressure from within and outside finally forced him to draw up a road map to democratic reforms, a key component of which was a multiparty democracy.
Born on May 17, 1967, President-elect Nasheed was educated in Sri Lanka and in the United Kingdom, where he got a bachelors degree in maritime studies from Liverpool John Moores University. He was 11 years old when Gayoom first came to power in 1978. He began his career as a journalist and incurred the wrath of the government with his strong criticism. Slapped with 27 charges, he was jailed or banished to a remote atoll for a total of six years. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience in 1996.
Though popularly known by his nickname Anni, many in his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) refer to Nasheed as Nelson Mandela. He was first elected to Parliament in 1999 but lost his seat in 2001 after being prosecuted for theft. He formed the MDP while in exile in Sri Lanka in 2003, a year that saw riots in the capital Male over the killing of a youth and a crackdown by the authorities.
In 2004, Nasheed was at the centre of pro-democracy protests that were sparked off after he went to commemorate the anniversary of the riots and to press for more reforms. He was arrested, and the government declared a state of emergency, which prompted the European Union to threaten sanctions against the Maldives.
Nasheed said his government would hold snap elections halfway through his five-year term a sign, he claimed, of his commitment to a healthy democracy. Under election laws, he must assume office by November 11. That will formally end the 30 years of rule by Gayoom, who did not allow political parties until 2005.
Nasheed will have to do a tightrope walk to balance the interests of the diverse groups that backed his candidature. He will also have to live up to the expectations generated by the campaign slogan of change.
Nasheed said his main task would be to sell off state trading enterprises, cut down the size of the Cabinet and turn the $62-million presidential palace, which Gayoom built, into the first university of the Maldives. He maintained that he was inheriting a virtually bankrupt nation and would immediately seek international aid of $300 million to stabilise an economy dependent on fisheries and tourism.
Despite being jailed by the Gayoom administration, he said he believed the elder politician might still be able to play a role. Gayoom was born in 1937. He attended Al Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, and earned degrees in law, education, and Islamic studies. After working as a lecturer in Nigeria, he returned to the Maldives in 1971 and held a number of ministerial and diplomatic posts, including that of the Deputy Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Ambassador to the United Nations. In 1978, he was elected President following the resignation of Emir Ibrahim Nasir. He was re-elected for the fifth consecutive term in 1998.
Gayoom was the target of coup attempts in 1980, 1983 and 1988. The one in 1988, carried out by mercenary soldiers, was crushed with the help of 1,600 Indian paratroopers. He will be best remembered abroad for his battle against climate change, which he said threatened to wipe the tiny coral islands off the face of the earth. Although he made the Maldives the richest South Asian nation with a per capita income of over $2,200, about 40 per cent of its 300,000 people live on less than a dollar a day.
B. Muralidhar Reddy in ColomboCOMMents
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