New challenges ahead for Nasheed after free elections
fter three decades as the unquestionable Head of the State of the Maldives, Asia's longest serving leader was cast out this week by a past political captive in the nation’s first ever independent elections. Mohamed “Anni” Nasheed bagged 54 per cent of the popular vote to 46 per cent for President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, according to the Election Commission. Later, Nasheed, 41, held talks with Gayoom, 71, and then addressed the tiny nation of 370,000 people, who are predominantly Sunni Muslims, spread across nearly 1,200 islands.Nasheed is likely to be sworn in on November 11 – exactly 30 years to the day after Gayoom took office in 1978, in a largely symbolic gesture. Brought up and educated in Sri Lanka and Britain, Nasheed spent six years in detention for protesting against Gayoom's rule, prior to being granted political refuge in Britain in 2004. He returned to the archipelago and set up the Maldivian Democratic Party after Gayoom authorised formation of political parties. Reacting to the power transfer, Fayyaz Ali Manik, a political expert at the Maldives College of Higher Education told TSI, “Nasheed has been a former Amnesty International 'prisoner of conscience'. I think that speaks volumes about him. I just hope that the power transition will be smooth. There is no place for vendetta politics here.”Gayoom's faction claims he has radically changed Maldives, making it a country with the highest per capita income and facilitated a non-violent switch to democratic rule. But his detractors brand him a modern-day sultan who has siphoned millions of dollars from tourism and tsunami aid, and could give Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's notorious President, a run for his money in his resolve to hang on to power. Nasheed’s throne, however, will not be without thorns. Maldives’ very survival is under threat from global warming. He’ll also have to tackle serious challenges: preserving its profitable tourism industry, guaranteeing a fairer division of assets and dealing with the youths' drugs culture.
fter three decades as the unquestionable Head of the State of the Maldives, Asia's longest serving leader was cast out this week by a past political captive in the nation’s first ever independent elections. Mohamed “Anni” Nasheed bagged 54 per cent of the popular vote to 46 per cent for President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, according to the Election Commission. Later, Nasheed, 41, held talks with Gayoom, 71, and then addressed the tiny nation of 370,000 people, who are predominantly Sunni Muslims, spread across nearly 1,200 islands.Nasheed is likely to be sworn in on November 11 – exactly 30 years to the day after Gayoom took office in 1978, in a largely symbolic gesture. Brought up and educated in Sri Lanka and Britain, Nasheed spent six years in detention for protesting against Gayoom's rule, prior to being granted political refuge in Britain in 2004. He returned to the archipelago and set up the Maldivian Democratic Party after Gayoom authorised formation of political parties. Reacting to the power transfer, Fayyaz Ali Manik, a political expert at the Maldives College of Higher Education told TSI, “Nasheed has been a former Amnesty International 'prisoner of conscience'. I think that speaks volumes about him. I just hope that the power transition will be smooth. There is no place for vendetta politics here.”Gayoom's faction claims he has radically changed Maldives, making it a country with the highest per capita income and facilitated a non-violent switch to democratic rule. But his detractors brand him a modern-day sultan who has siphoned millions of dollars from tourism and tsunami aid, and could give Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's notorious President, a run for his money in his resolve to hang on to power. Nasheed’s throne, however, will not be without thorns. Maldives’ very survival is under threat from global warming. He’ll also have to tackle serious challenges: preserving its profitable tourism industry, guaranteeing a fairer division of assets and dealing with the youths' drugs culture.
