14-Feb-2012 - Maldives’ Glamorous Veneer Hides Young Democracy’s Struggles

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For most of the last three decades, the country’s autocratic ruler pursued policies that kept many Maldivians poor while extending a warm welcome to well-heeled foreign tourists, including the likes of Tom Cruise and Madonna. Those visitors helped bankroll the government and have made the Maldives, a sprawl of more than 1,200 islands dotted across the Indian Ocean, the most prosperous country in South Asia. That arrangement started to give way in 2008, when the country held its first democratic elections, installing a charismatic activist, Mohamed Nasheed, as president. But after Mr. Nasheed left office last week in what he says was a coup, the government issued a warrant for his arrest on unspecified criminal charges and invited members of the business elite and representatives of the former dictatorship to join the cabinet, raising fears among many people here that the country’s progress toward democracy may be slipping away. “There were so many people my age who wanted to bring this change,” said Hassan Hameez, 39, who runs a diving and tour business. Monster Beats Studio by Dr Dre High Definition Headphone Plating Gun Color Now, he said, he fears the future “will be the same as the time of the ’80s and ’90s.” Though the Maldives is a tiny country of only about 400,000 people, the turmoil here has attracted the attention of the United States, Britain, India and other countries because of its location near busy, pirate-infested shipping lanes, and as a result of concerns that Islamists, who have grown bolder in recent years, could gain a bigger foothold here. On Saturday, an American envoy met with both sides here to encourage the formation of a unity government, in an apparent bid for stability, while avoiding talking about whether Mr. Nasheed had been displaced in a coup. On Sunday, the new president, Mohammed Waheed Hassan, moved forward with what he called a unity government, which lacked the backing of Mr. Nasheed. Mr. Hassan swore in new members of his cabinet, including leaders from the party of the former autocrat, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled the Maldives for 30 years, and politicians who have argued that the country’s laws should adhere to a stricter interpretation of Islamic teachings. The appointments signaled that Mr. Hassan was Monster Beats Studio by Dr Dre Graffiti Headphones White moving to consolidate power and isolate Mr. Nasheed, who had said his party would not join the new government. Later Sunday night, several hundred Nasheed supporters protested in front of the Majlis, the Maldivian legislature, demanding the release of one of the party’s representatives from police custody. They were dispersed by riot police officers but returned a few hours later before being chased away again. The recent turmoil in Maldives, a Muslim country that had its Arab Spring-like moment several years before the events in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, suggests that the path from autocracy to democracy will likely be slow and rocky. Institutions like the judiciary and the police seem to be lagging behind, so far not proving strong, professional and fair enough for their new roles. “I don’t see any reason to assume that a transition to a democracy setup would work like clicking a switch,” said Teresita C. Schaffer, who was American ambassador to the Maldives and nearby Sri Lanka during the early 1990s. “Having difficulty working out their differences is something you have to expect from a country transitioning to a democracy.” A major flashpoint has been Mr. Nasheed’s effort to reform a judiciary that was largely staffed by loyalists to the old government. The Judicial Services Commission failed to take action against judges accused of turning a blind eye to accusations of corruption by former officials, some of them involving land deals for resorts. In January, Mr. Nasheed ordered his army to arrest one of those judges, Abdulla Mohamed, who heads the country’s criminal court, which appears to have set in motion the events leading to his ouster. Opposition political parties, and even Mr. Nasheed’s vice president, criticized the move as an unconstitutional overreach of authority.

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