Great Maldivian electoral circus

Partyleaderspresident candidate

Maldivian Democratic PartyMohamed NasheedMohamed Nasheed

Progressive Party of MaldivesMaumoon Abdul GayyoomAbdulla Yameen

Jumhooree PartyQasim IbrahimQasim Ibrahim



Present President: Mohd. Waheed HasanBackground:Mohd. Nasheed became the first elected president of Maldives in 2008 after 30 years of autocratic rule of Maumoon Abdul Gayyoom. Who was controversially supported by india too.But during Nasheed reign he was unable to take all political parties along with him and started taking decisions single handily. He took many controversial decisions.One of them was to sack and arrest chief justice of Criminal court.it led to protests, even police was with protestors. All the state apparatus went against him andhe was forced to resign on 2012. The vice president Mohd Waheed was sworn in as president.
To get a better grip on it Read http://mrunal.org/2012/12/diplomacy-maldives-coup-reasons-implications-nasheed-gmr.htmlPresent Scenario:The present governments term is ending on 11th November 2013 and the president cannot continue after that as per the constitution of Maldives. So election is the only way forward.Facts:
Nasheed is still the most popular leader of Maldives and when he was prosecuted in court (for doing above) he further garnered support of general public of Maldives and India in specific. So due to this he was not banned from contesting elections by supreme court of Maldives.

Lets enter the circus now:First Phase of First electionsNasheed of the MDP got 45.45 percent votes
Abdulla Yameen of the PPM ( Gayooms party) with 25.35 percent
Gazim Ibrahim of Jumhooree party with 24.07
Current president Waheed got 5.13 percent

To be A president in Maldives you need to win 50%+1 votes and no one did so..
Therefore next round was inevitable but it was to be decided between top 2 contenders Nasheed and Yameen

Poor looser gasim Ibrahim:
The Jumhooree party filed a case in the High Court alleging rigging of the votes. They alleged that there were variations between the voters list and votes polled in various booths, votes being polled by voters who had no residential addresses, the names of many deceased were found in the list,repetition of some names in the lists etc.
The Jumhooree party filed another case in the Supreme Court seeking an injunction to delay the second round of voting. Surprisingly, the PPM of Gayoom and Yameen also supported the Jumhooree in the Supreme Court. The case filed by 3rd candidate Qasim Ibrahim is against the chances of 2nd candidates chances (Yameen) to go into run off for presidential seat. Still 3rd supported 2nd. WHY?
Bigger surprise was that the State Attorney General who should have remained neutral, intervened on behalf of the Jumhooree party in the court.
Most worrying, from my point of view is that most of the Islamic NGOs along with the Adhaalath party have called for a protest against the Election Commission alleging that the first round of presidential elections was rigged

Supreme Courts decision:1. It ordered that electoral lists may be given to High Court for scrutiny.
2. It also ordered an indefinite postponement of the run off.
3. Recounting of 490 boxes will take many days and the EC said that it is impossible to conduct the second round on the 28th Octoberas scheduled.
4. Pronounced that even if elections are not concluded before 11th November the present Govt. Continues in office.
5. Directed EC to verify the electoral lists again with finger prints of voters and dually signed by all president candidates..
Retaliation:
Meanwhile Nasheed, Indian Govt and western observers including EU, UN & USA all cried foul against SCs Judgement, but couldnt do more than lip service.
When Jumhooree party filed case; there was a fear that the 2nd round of elections may/will be derailed.
Therefore Majlis (parliament of Maldives) dominated by MDP members passed a resolution calling for the state institutions to proceed with the elections. during the passage of this resolution, there was unprecedented violence within the Majlis with the speakers mike being destroyed and members assaulted (isnt it circus now)
On the other hand Election Commission tried to proceed with the arrangements for the 2nd round of elections as mandated by constitution, while the Supreme Court took the unusual position that it can even change the constitution.
The Supreme Court had a midnight meeting on 26th September calling on the Police and the military to enforce the injunction order and halt all preparations for the conduct of the elections. On 27th September, the Police did whatever was said by SC.Flawed judgement of SC:1. 3 judges out of 4 annulled the elections on the basis of a confidential report not shown to even defendant.
2. 1 judge out of 3 who annulled elections is facing sexual crime charges in Sri lanka.

Basis:a report filed by police which was later revealed to public, showed 5623 out of 211850 voters with irregularities. i.e 2.5%
The breakup of 5623 irregularities pointed out is as follows.
Category 1:
7 minors had voted
773 people whose names were not in the list had voted.
225 who voted did not have the national identity card had voted.
18 votes were cast against the names of deceased persons.
3 people have voted twice.
Category 2:
819 people who voted had discrepancies in the identity card.
952 had discrepancies in their names
2830 people had irregularities in their permanent address.
And most laughable were last three (in red). Lolzzz
Most controversial was that this report was not shown even to the defendants lawyer before annulling elections.
It is clear that category 2 types of voters are not frauds these are just typing mistakes and not fraudulent votings. (Imagine if this has to happen in India where almost all voter IDs have spelling mistakes)
Also difference between 1st and 2rd candidate is way more than 5623.
First Phase of second elections
On 19th of November the date decided by SC for fresh first round of elections Police came to the picture and stopped EC to go on as scheduled.Police says that some electoral lists were not signed by all candidates and it is against the verdict of SC.My questions here is who the hell is police to interpret SC judgements and taking a Suo Motu cognizance and acting accordingly
Ridiculously two candidates named Qasim Ibrahim and Abdulla Yameen went underground. Now how can EC search out them and get the lists signed by them. And when they came out they went straight to SC and asked to verify all finger prints.
This could take at least 6 months. Actually it was all a part of larger plan to delay elections, create constitutional vacuum and keep nasheed away from power.From this picture it is clear that no one really understands who is really in power in Maldives
* Waheed

* Police Or

* Supreme Court

Reasons of doing so:

* Jumhooree Party candidate Qasim Ibrahim is considered as one of the most influential figures of Maldivian judicial services so he used all his strength to keep Nasheed away.

* It is alleged that Nasheed is anti Islamic. But truth is that he is a man with progressive mind and do not want religious fundamentalism to pop out its head it Muslim nation Maldives.

* Muslim clerics of Maldives who are against the MDP want to make maldive an Islamic state with sharia as its law, to which nasheed is oppsosing because it as against the economc interest f Maldives as its economy is driven by tourism sector and under such restrictive environment maldive could definitely loose aits foreign tourists.

* PPM even tried in SC to debar Nasheed from contesting elections on the grounds of outright criticism of Islam and imposing Islamic Sharia but failed to do under international pressure.

* Tried to frustrate the MDP supporters and waited for them to resort to violence. If they would have done so then state apparatus would have a got an excuse to put Nasheed behind Bars and keep him away from elections. It was a nice ploy of Law and order situation which they planned to sell to western observers and India.

* It is alleged that both Abdulla Yameen and Qasim Ibrahim were involved in major scams so they fear that they could be prosecuted if Nasheed comes to power.
Another Step by MAJLIS:
Now to avert any constitutional Vacuum the Majlis passed the resolution that if president is not elected by the end of 11th nov the speaker of majlis (who belongs to MDP) will lead the interim govt.With this resolution Opposition k plan par pani fir gaya and they all fell in line, president waheed for the first time announced that he does not want to continue beyond 11th nov and he will resign from his post. Both the opposition leaders lost all their ploys.
Final Run off After first round of Second elections (9th November) concluded Nasheed emerged with just short of majority with 47% votes trailing him was Abdullah Yameen with 30% of votes. Poor GQasim Ibrahim had it on his face.
The Elections Commission had earlier scheduled a runoff on November 16, but brought it forward to November 10 to avoid a constitutional crisis. But again The Supreme Villain Court of Maldives came into the picture and ruled that the consecutive days of elections would be impractical, and set November 16 for the runoff.After this delay US, EU, India and UN woke up from their slumber and openly warned and criticised Maldivian SC and President Waheed who were acting as impediments for elections.President Waheed Snubbed Majlis and extended his reign to 6 more days until the next candidate is elected and attracted flak from all international observers.Reason of this delay:it was alleged that gayoom and Gasim Ibrahim patched up and wanted to convert their collective votes in favour of Yameen (just to keep nasheed out of power). To do it they needed some time. Gayom promised G. Ibrahim 1/3rd of appointments in govt. He asked his supporters and voters to vote in favour of Yameen. That is why SC delayed run off to 16th (Gasim Ibrahim has nice links in SC as he was an influential member of Judicial Services).
END:
As you all know that some great person has said in a boring movie that hamari zindgi main bhi hamari hindi filmo ki tarah end main sab theek thaak ho jata hai
but Maldives didnt follow the above dictum and ultimately nasheed lost by a small margin and yameen won. Nasheed instead of moving to SC for stay gracefully accepted his defeat and pledged to work with president as a responsible opposition.
Indian stand:
From very beginning i.e. the coup against Nasheed India kept out of this mess citing the reasons that the democracy of Maldives is still immature and it needed some time to get consolidated, which appears to me as failure of Indias foreign policy. India must have interfered to save Nasheed who is a pro Indian leader and save guarded its own interests in Indian Ocean, whereas the next president Waheed was playing in Chinese hands and ousted GMR.Yameen on his oath promised to make closer ties with Arab nations, china also wooed them with 50bn dollar aid just after the election concluded.But here is the twist, soon after Yameen winning his election vented his anger and frustration against EU but did not utter a word against India, just because the level of interference was very less from Indian side. Therefore our foreign policy of wait and watch to see that who emerges as clear choice of public and then engage with him was a #success. Now Yameen is the choice of majority and he is not against India by any means so If India needs to have a stronger foot hold then she must work closely with both Yameen and Nasheed.Circus ends here and now concentrate on mains. Best of luck.Source: All articles tagged with Maldives in South asia analysis group (SAAG) and the hindu.
Aditya Sangotra