Maldives at the Crossroads
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 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.”
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