June 28, 2015 (Delayed Post)
MALE/ NEW DELHI:
Former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has chosen to make a strategic retreat after the failure of the June 12 protest. In a move that has surprised many and created quite a social media storm among its supporters, the MDP issued a whip to its MPs to vote in favour of a crucial constitutional amendment seeking to alter the age of Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidate to between 30 and 65 years. With the Opposition JP already having capitulated following intense pressure on the financial assets of its leader Gasim Ibrahim, the MDP – with its jailed leader (President Nasheed) – was the lone stumbling block in a move seen as crucial for President Yameen’s control over the corridors of power in Male. With the MDP strategic backdown, the bill was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in the Majlis (Parliament). 78 MPs including those from the PPM-MDA government, as well as the Opposition MDP and JP voted for the motion, while only 2 MPs voted against. It marked a key turning point in the battle for democracy in the Maldives.
FIRST SIGNS OF DISARRAY
Weeks ahead of the June 12 protest in Male, activists of the MDP were still basking in the afterglow of the hugely successful May Day protest that saw the Opposition alliance of the Adhaalath Party, Jumhooree Party and the MDP bring out over 20,000 people onto Majheedee Magu, the main street of Male. Close to 7,000 of these protesters were people from the atolls, who had flocked to Male in the face of substantial intimidation by the police and authorities.
Barely 2,500 people joined in the anti-government protest called by the MDP and Opposition parties including the Jumhooree Party and Adhaalath Party in Male. It was enough, though, to fill this small intersection of two of Male’s main roads.
Despite the arrest of top leaders of the MDP and AP and the arrest and prosecution of 193 protesters – many of whom subsequently lost their jobs – the MDP was on a political high. But in politics, you’re often only as good as your last protest. And when the MDP announced it was taking the lead in organising the June 12 protest, it perhaps never imagined that less than 2,000 people would answer their call. In fact, one senior MDP official boasted of an even bigger turnout, saying: “This time there will be 35,000 people!”
Wishful thinking, because even before the protest began on June 12, MDP activists had already conceded that it would be nowhere close to a repeat of the May Day turnout. Sources in the MDP leadership and a source in the office of President Nasheed were still hopeful of a turnout of at least 5,000 people.
No one expected a turnout of less than 2,000 people.
Later, MDP activists conceded that they were aware of the woefully low turnout by the 9th of June and many were in favour of calling off the protest. However, a decision was taken to forge ahead, lest those who were planning on turning up, were further disappointed by a cancellation of the event.
BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD
The failure of the May Day protest to reach the tipping point and effect regime change in Male was a body blow to plans of the Opposition MDP-AP-JP alliance. The Opposition’s hope that the Maldivian armed forces – the MNDF – would find itself forced to step in and take charge if the protest was somehow able to build up public sentiment and anger, manifesting itself in violent clashes with the Maldivian Police, was clearly and woefully misplaced. The international community – the other prong in the pincer that the Opposition was counting on, had delivered. But the plan of the MDP to shoot from the MDNF’s shoulder was a grave miscalculation.
The government came down with an uncharacteristic heavy hand, and the police action, the arrests and subsequent legal action – together with the Opposition leaders’ complete lack of a plan to capitalise on public anger and sentiment – all led to the indignant flames of protest being snuffed out quite effectively.
In hindsight, the failure of the June 12 protest was scripted long before. The MDP – licking its wounds – tried desperately to justify the failure by putting it down to the upcoming month of Ramadan, lack of propaganda and adequate build-up – yes, even blaming the weather for the poor turnout. But there was no shying away from reality.
As one MDP activist wearily confided: “It’s back to the drawing board now.”
‘NOTHING WITHOUT NASHEED’
The incarceration of President Nasheed has created a complexity of internal problems for the MDP, with constant jostling and manoeuvring for centrestage within the party. Currently, it’s the activist core, which has surrounded Nasheed for years, that appears to be calling the shots in the party, relegating even senior leaders like Ibu Soleih to the sidelines. Many of the MDP leaders in the limelight today, including party chairperson Ali Waheed, are politicians who joined the MDP after Nasheed’s victory in the 2008 Presidential election, and are hence seen as ‘outsiders now holding sway’, by many within the party as well as those have distanced themselves yet continue to be politically aligned with the party’s founding principles.
Without going deeper into the MDP’s internal strife as well as its current brand of cult personality politics, the rejection of President Nasheed’s clemency appeal by President Yameen and the subsequent release of Nasheed from prison into house arrest on health grounds, clearly points to an understanding having been struck by the current core leadership of the MDP and the Yameen government. Doctors had advised President Nasheed to undergo an MRI scan, but the Yameen government was steadfast in its refusal to permit him to undergo this scan. Even during the June 12 protest, much of the concern around the fate of Nasheed within the MDP was about his health and how he needed to urgently undergo an MRI scan.
It is still unclear what led to the change of heart by President Yameen in permitting Nasheed’s temporary three-day transfer to house arrest, but a lot can be gauged from the open acknowledgement of the MDP and its core group of activists that they are “nothing without Nasheed”, and their subsequent decision to vote with the government on the constitution amendment bill.
Today, with Nasheed back home for at least eight weeks medically advised rest, and tensions having visibly eased between the MDP and the government, the focus will now be on talks between both sides and whether any breakthrough can be made on important institutional changes required in Maldives’ fledgling democracy. The MDP has agreed to participate in the talks says President Nasheed, and President Yameen has appealed to the United Nations to aid in this process.
Despatches And File Notings 