Maldives: Nasheed asks MDP to quit government as Solih decrees ban on ‘India Out’ campaign

Two swift developments over the previous week/weekend have the potential to dictate the course of domestic politics in the Indian Ocean archipelago nation, Maldives, more than a year ahead of the all-important presidential polls in the last quarter of 2023, with a third one waiting to unfold by June this year. Even as President Ibrahim ‘Ibu’ Solih decreed a ban on ‘India Out’ campaign, as if conceding Parliament Speaker Mohammed ‘Anni’ Nasheed camp’s aborted legislative initiative in the matter, the latter has delivered a googly — on the eve of an  official visit to India — at the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), of which he has been elected president for long years, to quit the government. All this, when the trial court has been hearing two money-laundering cases against Opposition leader and former president Abdulla Yameen, with the  verdicts scheduled for June, after the  Supreme Court had acquitted him in an earlier case last year, restoring his legal right to contest the presidential election. [caption id=“attachment_10329551” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  (File) Former Maldives president Abdulla Yameen[/caption] For the uninitiated, President Solih too belongs to the MDP and heads a coalition government. He was Nasheed’s chosen nominee after he obtained  political asylum in the UK while on ‘prison leave’ in the ‘Judge Abdulla abduction case’, which also disqualified him from contesting the subsequent presidential polls of 2018. In a post on MDP WhatsApp group, Nasheed said that the best course of action for the party was not to drown alongside the  ‘drowning government’. He argued that ‘since the government isn’t an MDP government alone, what MDP members want and this party’s pledges remain unfulfilled’. Relentless campaign Nasheed’s fresh salvo at his MDP-led government has left the party and presidential camp speechless. In chronological terms, and not otherwise, it followed a  presidential decree banning the Opposition PPM-PNC combine’s controversial ‘India Out’ campaign in Maldives is expected to trigger a national discourse on the limits and limitations, if any, to the people’s ‘inalienable yet unbridled right’ to freedom of expression’, especially after  police removed banners, both original and modified, in which the legend, read,  ‘Indear Out’, instead. An Opposition-backed media promptly claimed that  India had forced the ‘decree’ decision on President Ibrahim ‘Ibu’ Solih with a 12-hour deadline. In his early reaction to the presidential decree, Yameen said it showed  ‘how much the government is under the influence of India’. Other party leaders  were relatively restrained this time, and stopped with mentioning the option of  moving the nation’s supreme court in the matter. The presidential decree follows a relentless, one-point Opposition campaign, variously tagged as ‘India Out’ and ‘India Military Out’, after Yameen admitted to the authorship of the original social media posts and began addressing nation-wide rallies with this theme as their centre-piece, after the  Supreme Court freed him in the multi-million-dollar ‘money-laundering case’, with  two more pending disposal in the trial court. The ‘India Out’ campaign was a repeat of an old strategy where the Yameen-inclusive Opposition had used (Islamic) religious NGOs, to demand the exit of then President Mohammed ‘Anni’ Nasheed in 2011-12, but by adding Indian infra major, GMR Group, as deflection-point of national concern. This time, the Opposition is assiduously avoiding direct linkage of the anti-India campaign to their unconcealed anticipation for the exit of the Solih government, keeping the campaign focus entirely on India. [caption id=“attachment_10329561” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Mohammed Nasheed[/caption] The presidential decree, proclaimed under  Article 115 (c), (d) of the Constitution. is supported by a decision of the National Security Council, which noted that the ‘India Out’ campaign put the nation at the ‘risk of loss of peace and stability, huge economic and social burden, and isolation in the international arena’. It concluded that ‘failure to save Maldives from the danger could lead to irrevocable losses, and make it difficult to maintain Maldives’ independence, and ascertain the safety of Maldivians living or visiting overseas, and foreigners in Maldives’. Ahead of the decree-proclamation, the Maldives Police Service (MPS) had issued notice to the Yameen camp to remove the offensive banners, prominently displayed outside their party offices and Yameen’s home. They later obtained a court order and removed the banners. Promptly, the pro-Yameen media questioned the need for the police obtaining a  crack-of-dawn court order soon after the early morning prayers, instead of waiting for regular court hours. Undue advantage Triggering the current process and asking the police to remove the banners outside Yameen’s house, Nasheed, as Speaker, dismissed an Opposition motion in Parliament, for the government to  ‘condemn the brutal attacks on Indian Muslims’. He told Parliament that the campaign violated the penal code.  However, the  pro-Yameen media contested Nasheed’s claim on this score. Not to be missed, the mainline media has also begun carrying agency reports on  ‘hate songs’ against Muslims in India. Reflecting Nasheed’s expressed sentiments in his proclamation, President Solih said that though his administration’s policy was to allow freedom of speech and freedom of assembly to the full extent possible, the ‘India Out’ campaign  took undue advantage of the policy, and with the purpose of violating the peace and security in Maldives. However, Nasheed’s subsequent targeting of the Solih leadership has sent out a clear signal that endorsing his stand on ‘India Out’ campaign was not enough for him to slow down on his open anti-Solih campaign, aimed at obtaining party nomination to contest next year’s presidential polls. In his decree, Solih also explained how the campaign was a deliberate attempt to hinder the long-standing relations with India, and international efforts to maintain security in the region. It is in this background that the National Security Council decided that political campaigns targeting a specific country posed a threat to national security, and that the security forces should stop activities that incite hatred towards specific countries. Ironically, Nasheed’s demand that tantamount to the MDP withdrawing support to Solih, if not for the latter to resign, comes ahead of his New Delhi visit, where he is speaking (on environment-related concerns) at the annual ‘Raisina Dialogue’, in which India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) is a partner and is also expected to meet with top government interlocutors. Freedom discourse Solih chose the decree route after the party’s parliamentary group was divided in backing a  draft legislation identified the Nasheed camp. The division was on predictable lines, between the camps of President Solih and Speaker Nasheed, the nation’s first ‘democracy President’ who also continues as the party boss for long years. If someone thought that Solih’s decree route after providing cool-off time for the legislation-centric controversies, was only an endorsement of Nasheed’s line, post-decree events may have proved that the latter’s camp seems to be looking at the decree as Solih’s way of hijacking their leader’s agenda. Yet, for a section of Solih camp MPs, more than the other, their concerns over the curtailment of the citizen’s freedom of expression, as indicated in the Nasheed camp’s draft law, was a real issue, based on grassroots-level feedback. In context, some recalled the party’s opposition when the short-lived government of President Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik (2012-13) made prior police permission and specification of date, time and venue, pre-requisites for staging public protests. This reality remains. Ruling party MPs who want no fetters on the people’s freedom of expression and assembly, as different from their opposition to the Yameen camp’s ‘misleading campaign’, as also a substantial section of non-member MDP supporters, privately had earlier contested the Nasheed camp’s draft legislation with the party’s previously-avowed preference for ‘unbridled’ freedom of expression, which they got enshrined in the 2008 Constitution. As may be noted, unlike a draft bill, a presidential decree does not require a parliamentary attestation per se. Hence the views of these MPs will be keenly watched, if and when the Yameen camp rakes up the presidential decree also in Parliament, and more so in the ‘241 national security committee’ of the House, where all they are out-numbered. So will be the views of the MDP’s three ruling combined allies, who are otherwise opposed to the Opposition campaign and Yameen’s kind of politics. However, in the changed circumstances, the real clue on the ’freedom of expression’ issue may lie near-exclusively with the Supreme Court. Today, the ‘quit government’ Nasheed diktat, if it’s one as party chief, may have clouded perspectives within the MDP, all across. It may have even diluted the position of either side on the ‘India Out’ campaign, seeking to keep the MDP and national focus on Nasheed and his next moves on the ‘quit government’ front. The question uppermost in the minds of the Solih camp MPs and other leaders is about ways to curtail Nasheed’s free-for-all comments of the kind, preceded by his recent public observation that the party cannot win the presidential polls (under the present government dispensation, that is). Sisterly nations In a relatively unrelated development, Maldivian defence minister Mariya Didi met with visiting Indian naval chief, Admiral R Hari Kumar, days ahead of the presidential decree and the subsequent Nasheed diktat, and highlighted that there was much to gain through collaboration between the  two ‘sisterly nations’ — a term otherwise used in reference to India by government leaders in common neighbour Sri Lanka.

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The minister thanked India for always providing swift, unconditional support to the Maldives, and pointed out how bilateral defence and security partnership is at its pinnacle. She expressed confidence that training and joint exercises such as ‘EKATHA’ will continue. Admiral Hari Kumar had chosen the Maldives for his maiden overseas visit after assuming office and also called on President Solih during his three-day visit, hosted a reception onboard  ‘Sutledge’, the visiting hydrographic ship of the Indian Navy on work in Maldivian waters, and also presented a $ 8000-cheque to minister Mariya Didi as her nation’s share from the joint sale of the nation’s hydrographic maps. Simultaneously, the Maldives Police Service, in response to an RTI query, clarified that  Indian trainers at the ‘Institute of Security and Law Enforcement Studies’ would extend only logistical support, and were subject to exclusion from specific or special treatment. The police said no policy regarding recruitment had been made yet, and attested that the trainers’ numbers will be decided based on requirements and after mutual consultations. Overkill or what In this background, Nasheed’s diktat to the MDP, if it could be called so, has diverted national focus and political attention from Solih government’s developmental initiatives, many of them with Indian assistance, which seems to be bugging the rival Yameen camp.  This is also one more way of the Nasheed continuing the pressure on the Solih leadership ahead of next month’s election for MDP chairman, where both camps have fielded candidates. However, the Solih camp sees it as yet another desperate move by Nasheed that would work to their advantage. They are keenly waiting to know what all Nasheed says about the nation’s domestic politics and his own perception of MDP and alliance affairs, in multiple interactions with the Indian media, as he is wont to. The reasons are not far to seek. A week before his call for the MDP to quit the government, Nasheed, in a social media post, claimed that the  MDP would find it difficult to secure the 50-per cent vote-share required to win next year’s presidential elections despite the government’s claims to the contrary. In a social media post, the second in a few days, he said that the government had not stood by the party’s poll pledges, especially on fisheries development. Clearly, he has not given up on his hopes on the presidency, after he lost yet another unilateral initiative for the nation going in for the parliamentary scheme of governance with him as the ‘interim prime minister’. In a stray incident that went beyond the Opposition’s anti-India campaign that involved wall graffiti and the like, a government MP told Parliament that Opposition cadres had  vandalised the artificial turf material meant for installation at the Ihavandhoo stadium. That was before the presidential decree. Since the presidential decree, the Opposition has also come up with a statement, criticising the government for suspending a school teacher, who had spoken against the new law, and asking the government to  ‘stop obstructing acts that defend independence’. In the midst of it all, the question arises if the government group would have done well by letting the ‘India Out’ campaign die a natural death, given the lack of popular support for the Yameen initiative — and sow seeds of confusion in his ranks about the contradiction of it all when India has ensured ‘food security’ and the rest for all of Maldives and all Maldivians through the year, and for decades now. The ruling party’s over-kill may end up causing the common man’s eyebrows to raise even if he did not endorse Yameen’s unsubstantiated allegations wee-bit. More importantly, it remains to be seen how the MDP handles itself, and what message do the three allies of the party read in Nasheed’s notice to his party, and in turn, on them, even more. The question is if they think that Nasheed has still not changed from his 2020 parliamentary polls, which he caused the MDP to contest alone, win more seats (65/87) single-handedly but with a reduced, 46-percent voter-share, four-plus short of the requirement for a clean victory in the presidential polls, when held. India and also other friends of Maldives that have supported Nasheed’s pro-democracy protests and initiatives of the past decades, beginning with the 30-year-old elected autocracy of President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, whose MRM is now an ally of the MDP, have been left to sit tight with all their fingers and toes crossed! The writer is a Policy Analyst and Commentator, based in Chennai, India. Views expressed are personal. Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.