“WE HAVE coral beaches and azure water,” said Mohamed Jameel, a former vice-president of the Maldives, speaking from London, which has neither, on June 1st. “But there is trouble in paradise.” Mr Jameel was speaking alongside Mohamed Nasheed, his country’s first democratically elected president, who was ousted in 2012, jailed on dubious terrorism charges in 2015, allowed to go to London for medical treatment in January and granted asylum on May 23rd. The former rivals, along with other politicians who have fallen afoul of the increasingly repressive current president, Abdulla Yameen, appealed for free and fair elections. That seems an increasingly distant prospect.
An election seems likely enough to happen. But Mr Yameen is preparing for the 2018 campaign not by making his case to the voters, but by banning unauthorised public banners—meaning, in practice, those for any candidate other than himself. Meanwhile, giant billboards depicting a benignly smiling Mr Yameen—alongside the money his government is spending on roads, mosques, football pitches and the like—have begun popping up all over the capital, Malé.
A bill is pending in the legislature that would make defamation a criminal offence (Mr Nasheed’s government decriminalised it in 2009). The government has continued to harass employees of the main opposition-aligned television station, while the country’s largest print newspaper remains shuttered amidst an internecine ownership dispute. The government and opposition remain more divided than ever: a visit from a UN arbitrator in April failed to revive all-party talks, because the opposition insists on the release of political prisoners as a precondition. The government has shown itself in no mood to agree.
Talk of European and Commonwealth sanctions has grown louder, and seems to be driving Mr Yameen into the welcoming arms of China and Saudi Arabia. Right next to the $200m China-Maldives “friendship bridge”, Saudi Arabia is financing a new mosque named for its ruler (King Salman), which can hold 6,000 people. The Saudi Binladin Group, a construction conglomerate headquartered in Jeddah, will build a new passenger terminal for Malé’s international airport. Saudi Arabia has pledged to help Mr Yameen in his perhaps over-ambitious dream of turning the Maldives into a subcontinental Singapore.
But the good governance for which Singapore is renowned eludes Mr Yameen. The economy is wobbly, and increasingly dependent on Chinese package tourists. At least 100 Maldivian jihadists have gone to fight in Syria and Iraq—not much in absolute numbers, but a large per-capita share of the country’s small population. Recently jihadists posted a video of themselves machine-gunning portraits of Messrs Yameen, Nasheed and Maumoon Gayoom, who ruled the country for 30 years and whom Mr Nasheed defeated in the 2008 general election. The prospect of fighters returning terrifies a country dependent on booze-swilling non-Muslim tourists lounging on beaches in skimpy clothes.
Mr Yameen has used laughable terrorism charges to imprison political rivals: first Mr Nasheed, and then last February Imran Abdulla, head of an Islamist party, who had called for calm during a rally in support of Mr Nasheed. Mr Yameen claims to have foiled an attempted coup led by his former defence minister, and narrowly escaped an assassination attempt last September (an explosion on his yacht left him unscathed but injured his wife).
After jailing one former vice-president and driving another into exile, Mr Yameen has governed without a deputy for the past seven months. Hence the steady stream of dissident politicians drifting west. At their gathering last week Mr Nasheed admitted, “Most of us here…have been on different sides of the fence.” That is an understatement. Among those sitting alongside him were not only Mr Jameel, who once called him an “anti-Islamic, Israel-loving traitor to the nation”; but also the brother of Mohamed Nizam, who as defence minister forced him to resign (Mr Nazim himself remains imprisoned in the Maldives); and the wife of Ahmed Adeeb, Mr Yameen’s former vice-president and tourism minister who on June 5th was imprisoned for terrorism. For now this rogue’s gallery seems united in their hatred for Mr Yameen: “The need to restore democracy,” said Mr Jameel, “is more important than our differences.” But should democracy be restored, those differences may come roaring back.
“WE HAVE coral beaches and azure water,” said Mohamed Jameel, a former vice-president of the Maldives, speaking from London, which has neither, on June 1st. “But there is trouble in paradise.” Mr Jameel was speaking alongside Mohamed Nasheed, his country’s first democratically elected president, who was ousted in 2012, jailed on dubious terrorism charges in 2015, allowed to go to London for medical treatment in January and granted asylum on May 23rd. The former rivals, along with other politicians who have fallen afoul of the increasingly repressive current president, Abdulla Yameen, appealed for free and fair elections. That seems an increasingly distant prospect.
An election seems likely enough to happen. But Mr Yameen is preparing for the 2018 campaign not by making his case to the voters, but by banning unauthorised public banners—meaning, in practice, those for any candidate other than himself. Meanwhile, giant billboards depicting a benignly smiling Mr Yameen—alongside the money his government is spending on roads, mosques, football pitches and the like—have begun popping up all over the capital, Malé.
A bill is pending in the legislature that would make defamation a criminal offence (Mr Nasheed’s government decriminalised it in 2009). The government has continued to harass employees of the main opposition-aligned television station, while the country’s largest print newspaper remains shuttered amidst an internecine ownership dispute. The government and opposition remain more divided than ever: a visit from a UN arbitrator in April failed to revive all-party talks, because the opposition insists on the release of political prisoners as a precondition. The government has shown itself in no mood to agree.
Talk of European and Commonwealth sanctions has grown louder, and seems to be driving Mr Yameen into the welcoming arms of China and Saudi Arabia. Right next to the $200m China-Maldives “friendship bridge”, Saudi Arabia is financing a new mosque named for its ruler (King Salman), which can hold 6,000 people. The Saudi Binladin Group, a construction conglomerate headquartered in Jeddah, will build a new passenger terminal for Malé’s international airport. Saudi Arabia has pledged to help Mr Yameen in his perhaps over-ambitious dream of turning the Maldives into a subcontinental Singapore.
But the good governance for which Singapore is renowned eludes Mr Yameen. The economy is wobbly, and increasingly dependent on Chinese package tourists. At least 100 Maldivian jihadists have gone to fight in Syria and Iraq—not much in absolute numbers, but a large per-capita share of the country’s small population. Recently jihadists posted a video of themselves machine-gunning portraits of Messrs Yameen, Nasheed and Maumoon Gayoom, who ruled the country for 30 years and whom Mr Nasheed defeated in the 2008 general election. The prospect of fighters returning terrifies a country dependent on booze-swilling non-Muslim tourists lounging on beaches in skimpy clothes.
Mr Yameen has used laughable terrorism charges to imprison political rivals: first Mr Nasheed, and then last February Imran Abdulla, head of an Islamist party, who had called for calm during a rally in support of Mr Nasheed. Mr Yameen claims to have foiled an attempted coup led by his former defence minister, and narrowly escaped an assassination attempt last September (an explosion on his yacht left him unscathed but injured his wife).
After jailing one former vice-president and driving another into exile, Mr Yameen has governed without a deputy for the past seven months. Hence the steady stream of dissident politicians drifting west. At their gathering last week Mr Nasheed admitted, “Most of us here…have been on different sides of the fence.” That is an understatement. Among those sitting alongside him were not only Mr Jameel, who once called him an “anti-Islamic, Israel-loving traitor to the nation”; but also the brother of Mohamed Nizam, who as defence minister forced him to resign (Mr Nazim himself remains imprisoned in the Maldives); and the wife of Ahmed Adeeb, Mr Yameen’s former vice-president and tourism minister who on June 5th was imprisoned for terrorism. For now this rogue’s gallery seems united in their hatred for Mr Yameen: “The need to restore democracy,” said Mr Jameel, “is more important than our differences.” But should democracy be restored, those differences may come roaring back.
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