SMART governments know when to back off. The Maldivian government, which is headed by Waheed Hasan and has been in the news since early this year for all the wrong reasons, played a clever hand against former President Mohamed Nasheed. The bout is not over, but this round goes to the government.
Nasheed ignored a magistrate court summons in a case relating to the unlawful arrest of a judge when he was President, defied an order by the same court confining him to an island, and took off on a campaign tour to the southern islands in the first week of October. In doing so, he ended up openly challenging the courts. The government, which has not been able to move forward on any substantive issue because the party Nasheed belongs to (the Maldivian Democratic Party, or MDP) will not play ball in the Majlis (parliament), sat back and watched with glee as the court ordered the arrest of Nasheed. A massive force (excessive force is the phrase Amnesty International used) landed on the island where Nasheed was campaigning, took him to the detention centre on the nearby island of Dhoonidhoo, and produced him before another court in Male the next day.
Nasheed walked free in just over 24 hours, but the government proved a point: the independent judiciary is its tool of choice to get Nasheed back in line. Police are carrying out their duties. Its the judiciarys decision. Nasheed is taken on court order for having absconded [from] the court twice now. We as government have no control over the judiciary, a Minister said.
Nasheed believes that the government is trying to secure a conviction against him so that he will be disqualified from the election slated for next year. The MDP believes there is no chance of a fair trial in the Maldives for former President Nasheed. Nasheeds legal team has complained about the extraordinary way the trial is being conducted, it said in a statement. The battle lines are now drawn. In a country of just over 300,000 people, that means everyone is a soldier on the front lines.
R.K. RadhakrishnanCOMMents
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