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Some MOHAMED NASHEED my vice president, who has since been sworn into of the protesters were relentlessly rebuking the office, helped to plan it. armed forces for protecting ‘the Jew’ - and loudly The Dregs of applauding the Police.In the meantime, the Vice Choosing to stand up to the judge was a con- President issued a statement ordering the armed Dictatorship troversial decision, but I feel I had no choice forces to refrain from following ‘unconstitutional’ but to do what I did — to have taken no action, orders, while the rebelling police were calling for February 7, 2012 and passively watched the country’s democracy the Commissioner to issue an apology for issuing strangled, would have been the greatest injustice such orders.Rumors flew that a faction of the DICTATORSHIPS don’t always die when the of all. army had also decided to join the rebels, but were dictator leaves office. The wave of revolutions being forcibly held at their base. In the space of a that toppled autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya The problems we are facing in the Maldives are few hours, of course, the whole thing dangerously and Yemen last year was certainly cause for hope. a warning for other Muslim nations undergoing blew into a full blown national crisis. But the people of those countries should be aware democratic reform. At times, dealing with the that, long after the revolutions, powerful net- corrupt system of patronage the former regime A group of young men - ostensibly MDP activ- works of regime loyalists can remain behind and left behind can feel like wrestling with a Hydra: ists - were seen rushing towards the republican can attempt to strangle their nascent democracies. when you remove one head, two more grow back. square with sticks and other weapons. In the en- With patience and determination, the beast can be suing commotion, the police and the MNDF were I learned this lesson quickly. My country, the slain. But let the Maldives be a lesson for aspiring caught in a vicious pitched battle, and copious Maldives, voted out President Maumoon Abdul democrats everywhere: the dictator can be re- amounts of pepper spray and tear gas canisters Gayoom, its iron-fisted ruler, back in 2008, in moved in a day, but it can take years to stamp out were being flung by both sides.The way the situ- historic elections that swept away three decades the lingering remnants of his dictatorship. ation was getting out of hand, I did momentarily of his authoritarian rule. And yet the dictator- fear there would be bloodshed. But the reality is ship bequeathed to the infant democracy a looted Mohamed Nasheed was president of the Maldives that the country simply cannot afford to have the treasury, a ballooning budget deficit and a rotten from 2008 until Feb. 7. military publicly open fire on citizens. Even the judiciary. dictator Maumoon with all his absolute powers http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/opin- didn’t dare do it. I was elected that year, and with the help of the ion/in-the-maldives-strangled-democra- International Monetary Fund, my government cy.html It just wouldn’t work. worked to cut the deficit, while also building a modern tax base. For the first time in its history, Given this, the President did the right thing by the Maldives — a group of islands in the Indian gracefully resigning in the face of a coup d’etat. Ocean — had a democratically elected president, YAMEEN RASHEED parliament and local councils. I must take the time out to say what I truly feel Treason. about President Nasheed.I haven’t the slightest But it also had a judiciary handpicked by the doubt that he’s a democrat in every sense of the former president, which was now hiding behind Coup. word. a democratic constitution. These powerful judges provided protection for the former president, Change. However, he is also more of an activist than a his family members and political allies, many of statesmen; more adept at giving populist, rousing whom are accused of corruption, embezzlement February 7, 2012 speeches than building a national consensus. It and human rights crimes. is not surprising then that the last few months of Don’t get me wrong. I predicted this just two the country has seen absolute political polariza- At the same time, new laws guaranteeing freedom weeks ago. In fact, here’s what I said in a piece for tion - with no willingness on either side to com- of speech were abused by a new force in Maldiv- Minivan News, published on 24 January 2012”It promise or see eye-to-eye on any issue.President ian politics: Islamic extremists. The former presi- simply does not bode well for the country’s Nasheed’s ability to turn conventional wisdom on dent’s cabinet members threw anti-Semitic and democracy when the powers bestowed to one arm its head and pull out one surprise after the other anti-Christian slurs at my government, branding of the State is unilaterally employed to twist the never failed to impress.I severely criticized his de- as apostates anyone who tried to defend the coun- other arm. cision to gamble with the country’s economy by try’s liberal Islamic traditions and claiming that banning spas and massage parlours in the resorts. democracy granted them and their allies license to The country has already had one failed attempt at But one can’t deny the sheer brilliance of the ma- call for violent jihad and indulge in hate speech. democracy before. If the actions of the demo- noeuvre; the manner in which he publicly called cratic leaders causes the general public loses the opposition’s bluff and exposed the hypocrisy In response to these issues, my government faith in democratic institutions and the rule of of the mullahs and the two-faced nature of people asked the United Nations to help us investigate law, then there’s no reason to believe it won’t like Gasim Ibrahim. judicial abuses and ordered the arrest of Abdulla fail again.”And that’s exactly what happened last Mohamed, the chief judge of the criminal court, night. Our country’s second (third?) experiment Faced with an inflamed public charged with high on charges of protecting the former president with democracy failed.I was watching from a religious rhetoric spewed by the local Taliban (I’m and corrupting the judicial system. However, in building with a vantage point, seeing the events afraid, I have to include the likes of Dr Hassan a dramatic turn of events on Tuesday, the former of the night unfold on the streets below me. When Saeed in this), Anni could have easily chosen to president’s supporters protested in the streets, the entire Police force refused to take orders and plunge into feverish religious rhetoric himself. and police officers and army personnel loyal to openly rebelled, I knew it was going to rapidly the old government mutinied and forced me, at spiral out of control.Once that happened, I saw Instead, he chose to make a public stand in favour gunpoint, to resign. To avoid bloodshed, I did so. the rioters lose all their fear. Stones and bottles of tolerant, moderate, traditional Islam. It is easy www.mvdemocracy.com real time view of the ongoing events originating from the moment of extortion 1 to underestimate the kind of courage it takes to do something like that in a society like the Maldives. GLOBAL VOICES / SAFFAH FAROOG Where others like Velezinee and Ibra have repeat- Maldives: edly tried hard and failed, Anni succeeded in making the corrupt, runaway judiciary a subject President of intense national debate, if only temporarily.The Abdulla Ghazee episode proved to be his undoing. Resigns Af- His activist bent of mind dictated, perhaps, that given the circumstances, the ends justified the ter Mutiny means. February 7, 2012 In a way, Anni has proved himself a sort of a soldier than a leader - more interested in building Mohamed Nasheed, the president of Maldives and preserving democracy than actually practic- most famously known as a climate champion, ing it. This time, his big gamble failed. announced his resignation [1] on Tuesday 7 February, 2012, after the military forces joined the Oftentimes in recent weeks, I have been forced to police mutiny against his rule. wonder whether it is worth preserving the ‘Rule of Law’ and the associated institutions - even Nasheed, sworn in to office in November 2008 af- when they are clearly dysfunctional and corrupt. ter the country’s first democratic multiparty elec- Would the Maldivian public be better off with a tion, was inside the military headquarters when benevolent, modernist dictator who can forcibly the military started withdrawing their allegiance drag them in the direction of progress? to him. He was taken in a car to the nearby Presi- dent’s Office where he announced his resignation I hate to say that I can’t answer it to this day. on live television in front of journalists.Some Maldivians were worried about the safety of the One part of me understands how crucial it is to president.