Undoing of a democratically elected President

Maldivian Vice President Dr. Mohamed Waheed Hassna was sworn in as the acting President of the Maldives, after more than three weeks of anti government protests forced President Mohamed Nasheed out of office on Tuesday.

The resignation was the climax of nightly protests on the streets of the Maldivian capital of Male, triggered by the arrest of a senior judicial official, an unprecedented crisis in the mostly tranquil nation.

The street protests began with the arrest of the Chief Justice of the Criminal Court of the Maldives, Abdulla Mohamed on January 16, and have grown increasingly violent each day, forcing the government to seek assistance from the UN, as well as from the Commonwealth, for a team of legal experts to visit the country, to help resolve the impasse created between the government and the judiciary, since Abdullah’s arrest.

The government had accused Judge Abdullah of being in complicity with criminals, while members of the main opposition Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM) have defended him, saying that the government is attempting to interfere with the work of the judiciary.

“The opposition has been inciting people, using hate speech to mobilise activists on the ground, while the government upholds freedom of speech as guaranteed under the present constitution. “The inflammatory speeches and incitement to violence is not something that the government can condone,” Maldivian Foreign Secretary Mohamed Naseer who was in Colombo in the last week of January, told the Sunday Times.

The government accused the Adhaalath Party of the Maldives, as well as the opposition PPM founded by former President Abdul Gayoom, of being behind the unrest.

The PPM had denied allegations of extremism. A PPM official in the Maldives said that the violence during the protests had been instigated by vigilantes unleashed by the government, many of whom are hardcore criminals released from prison under a special programme called ‘second chance.’

The PPM founded by former President of the Maldives, Maumoon Abdul Gayyoom and other opposition forces had called for the immediate releases of Judge Abdulla Mohamed, as well as the resignation of President Nasheed. “(President) Nasheed to step down and hand over power to his deputy.

It was in the light of the growing unrest that the government sought intervention by the UN and the Commonwealth, to send a team of legal experts to resolve the crisis.

The request was for a team of highly qualified retried judges to come to the Maldives and help reform the country’s judiciary.

By Friday, representatives of the UN and the Commonwealth, as well as a special envoy from India were in Male to monitor the situation.

A senior member of Nasheed’s Maldives Democratic Party (MDP), who is in Colombo, alleged that up to 500 of their supporters are in prison, after the ousting of the President.

Meanwhile, sources in Male said there seems to a growing radicalisation of the people of the country, which was visible from the destruction caused to some of the statues that were erected for the SAARC summit held there last December.