Former President of the Maldives Mohammed Nasheed flew secretly to Sri Lanka earlier this week in an apparent move to give shape to plans for unseating President Abdullah Yameen.
Nasheed was granted asylum by the United Kingdom in April this year after he was allowed to leave Male, where he was under arrest on alleged terrorism charges since March 2015.
Helped by Colombo, New Delhi and the West, he travelled to the UK for treatment of a back condition after a stopover in Sri Lanka, and did not return to his jail term as set down by the Maldivian government.
His arrival back in Colombo last Tuesday night from the UK is likely to be watched with interest in New Delhi and Beijing. In recent years, New Delhi has been concerned at the growing influence of China in the Maldives.
The US and UK, too, hold concerns about Beijing’s footprint in the Indian Ocean. Reports of Islamist radicalisation and several Maldivians joining the Islamic State have also troubled both India and Western countries.
Nasheed’s presence in Sri Lanka was confirmed by a top source in the Indian government, and separately, by a source in Sri Lanka, who also did not want to be identified.
“Mr. Nasheed has lots of family members residing in Sri Lanka. He came to meet them. He is also concerned about what’s happening in Maldives,” the source in Sri Lanka said.
A Maldivian opposition source in Colombo said he was unaware of Nasheed’s presence in Sri Lanka but confirmed that the opposition was “in discussions about how to remove President Yameen using all available legal means”.
He said: “People have had enough of the corruption, all the human rights violations and the derailment of democracy. I don’t know if Mr. Nasheed is here but all Maldives opposition leaders, wherever they are in the world, are discussing this”.
Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party is part of the joint opposition front called the Maldives United Opposition launched two months ago in London.
In Male, there have been several protests against the government, increasingly seen as authoritarian. Yameen has led a crackdown on critics, dissidents and opposition leaders, alleging a plot to his life. Earlier this month, the Maldivian parliament, or Majlis, adopted the “Protection of Reputation and Good Name and Freedom of Expression Bill,” which criminalizes speech deemed to be defamatory, to comment against “any tenet of Islam”, to “threaten national security” or to “contradict general social norms”.
Sources said the plan being discussed was impeachment of the President but it is unclear if the move will garner the support of the required number of parliamentarians in the 85-member Majlis. However, some members of Yameen’s Progressive Party of Maldives, led by party founder and longtime Maldives ruler, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom defied a party whip to cross vote in Parliament on the defamation law. Gayoom and Yameen are brothers, but appear on opposite sides at the moment.
Nasheed, who is fighting a legal battle against the charges pressed on him by the Maldivian government, did not respond to emails and messages on whether his presence in the Sri Lankan capital was related to any plans against Yameen.
Said Maldivian High Commissioner Ahmed Mohamed: “We are hearing only from social media reports that Nasheed is planning to go to Sri Lanka. We don’t know what the purpose is.
Our government and security agencies will not allow any unconstitutional moves by the Opposition.” Asked if Yameen was aware of the impeachment move, Ahmed said, “As for legal moves, we have been hearing some talk about this but we do not believe MDP has the support for this.”
Sri Lanka was described by the former British prime Minister David Cameron earlier in the year as a “frontline state” in the campaign to restore democracy in the Maldives. Much to the Yameen government’s irritation, The Maldivian National Party’s top leadership has been based in Sri Lanka since Nasheed went into exile.
The Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mahishi Colonne said as far as the Sri Lankan government was aware, Nasheed was in the United Kingdom.
An official in the Ministry of External Affairs said New Delhi was not aware of Nasheed’s presence in the region, nor had he reached out to New Delhi. He said the government had “good relations” with the Yameen government and the Opposition.
“China is the elephant in the room” in New Delhi’s relations with Male, the official said, but added that the Nasheed was no less adept than Yameen at balancing interests between Beijing and New Delhi.
Last year, India was alarmed at a new law pushed through the Maldivian parliament that allowed Chinese companies and indivduals to buy freehold land in the atolls. The MDP had helped pass the legislation, the official pointed out, saying a change in government in Male may not help address Indian concerns. In 2011, on the day Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in Male, Nasheed, who was then President, inaugurated the Chinese embassy in the Maldivian capital. But more widely in the Indian government, it is believed that Nasheed may serve Indian interests better than Yameen.
(Indian Express)
