Tagged: Maldives Parliament

It’s the judiciary, stupid

by Azra Naseem

We had information that on 8 February Mohamed Nasheed would close other courts in the Maldives, send all judges home, and acting on his own, would establish a Judicial Reform Commission. From then onwards, it would be this Commission that would appoint all magistrates. ~2013 Presidential Candidate, Umar Naseer (PPM).

I learned about President Nasheed’s intention to establish a Judicial Reform Commission—or in whatever name it maybe—only after the government changed. ~ 2013 Presidential Candidate, Abdulla Yameen (PPM)

We don’t know for sure whether Mohamed Nasheed was planning to form a Judicial Reform Commission on 8 February 2012 or not. But, leaders of the National Alliance, especially PPM, have made it clear what motivated them most to be out on the streets protesting until Nasheed’s government ended was the prospect of Nasheed making changes to the judiciary .

Many ‘intelligence-based’ reasons were offered  for the National Alliance’s opposition to the expected changes: Nasheed’s Judicial Reform Commission was going to be totally under his control; it was a way for Nasheed to usurp judicial power; it was Nasheed’s means of destroying the judiciary.

Truth of the matter is all parties in the National Alliance would have been opposed to judicial reform in whatever form it came.

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From Maldives, with love

by Azra Naseem

Maldives and China haven’t had much to do with each other in much of their modern histories. In fact, so negligible have bilateral relations been that it is very likely Maldives is the only country in the world without a Chinese takeaway run by a Chinese cook.

Things have taken a dramatic turn in the last few days, though, with Maldivian legislators finding a sudden, until now undeclared, love of China, and all things Chinese. This sudden armour stems not from a particular change in Chinese policy towards the Maldives, or from the exponential growth in number of Chinese tourists visiting the Maldives. No, like many passions declared intensely by coup-supporters, it seems to stem from  hatred of the other: in this case ‘the West’ in general and the Commonwealth in particular.

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Kutti and the coup: what role MP Mohamed Nasheed?

by Aishath Velezinee

For 22 consecutive nights from mid-January 2012 onwards unrest rocked the streets of Male’. This was the planning period of the coup that ultimately brought down the first democratically elected government of the Maldives on 7 February 2012. Political opponents of then President Mohamed Nasheed led the unrest, inciting public anger against him purportedly for violating the constitution.

One of the loudest voices making the claim that President Nasheed had veered wildly off the ‘Constitutional chart’ was that of Independent MP for Kulhudhuffishi Area Mohamed (Kutti) Nasheed. The point he kept reiterating was that in ‘disappearing’ Judge Abdulla Mohamed (commonly referred to as ‘Judge Ablo’), President Nasheed had abused the Constitution.

Given Kutti’s vociferous condemnation of President Nasheed’s said constitutional violation, it seems prudent to take a critical look at Kutti’s own relationship with the constitution as well as his role in the coup, if any.

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