Cold feet in the atoll

In January 2005, the Maldives President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom promised his country a new Constitution by the beginning of the following year. At that time, President Gayoom had ruled the Maldives since 1978 – seventy percent of the country's years of independence – but had been increasingly pressured into initiating an agenda of democratic reform. Not only is the new Constitution nowhere to be seen, but the country now seems more mired in political stagnation than anytime in recent years. The impasse comes after 2005 saw a significant swell in opposition to the president. Observers are warning that the archipelago could see grave socio-political crises, if promised democratic reforms are not delivered immediately.

Last year's momentum initially crested with the Parliament's unanimous decision to officially register political parties. Within months of the June vote green-lighting the move towards multi-party democracy, however, the government began to backtrack – particularly with regard to the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), the first to gain the numbers necessary to register. Incidents from that period continue to reverberate six months later. On 5 August 2005, the newly-official MDP submitted to government officials and Commonwealth mediators a plan on how to move the Maldives towards democratisation. The MDP memorandum began with the warning that the country was "on the verge of a popular uprising that can turn events either way: violent or peaceful." Among its demands were moves to increase governmental transparency, and a more equitable composition of the Parliament and Constitutional Assembly (the People's Majlis and People's Special Majlis, respectively), thereby decreasing President Gayoom's personal power over these assemblies' machinations and decisions. The given timeframe was within 30 to 60 days from 12 August.
Just one week later, 12 August was the one-year anniversary of what has become known as 'Black Friday', when security forces had confronted a record-sized public gathering in Male, arresting hundreds for calling on the president to resign. To commemorate the date the following year, MDP Chairman Mohamed Nasheed held a vigil in the capital; there, he was quickly arrested by riot police, a move initially explained as being for his own safety. After hundreds more were imprisoned while condemning the detention, Nasheed – who had returned from exile only months earlier – was eventually charged with sedition and terrorism.

On 30 January 2006, the Criminal Court again re-extended Nasheed's detention, as it had done at regular monthly intervals since his arrest. Along with the 10-year sentence handed down to fellow MDP councillor (and daughter of the self-exiled MDP founder) Jennifer Latheef in mid-October, Nasheed's name has become a rallying cry for the islands' masses, and a litmus test for the official opposition. The court ruled on Nasheed's detention less than a week after an MDP-scheduled capital demonstration to call for his release on 24 January reportedly drew threats of government-sponsored violence. Despite such security worries, the rally drew an estimated 4000 protesters that day – a large number for Male, especially considering the tense atmosphere. The government placed participation numbers at exactly 382, handed the MDP a stiff MVR 50,000 fine for contravening regulations governing the actions of political parties, and announced that they would be charging individuals for participating.

Immediately following the 30 January court ruling, the MDP pulled out of long-awaited all-party talks scheduled for 5 February. To be held with Commonwealth mediation, the talks were to have covered ways to bring about constitutional reforms in line with Commonwealth conventions. The MDP explained their refusal to participate by citing that they had originally agreed to the talks on the condition that President Gayoom "demonstrates a commitment to reform by freeing internationally recognised political prisoners." These included Nasheed and Latheef, as well as Ahmed Didi, who ran an anti-government website, and artist Naushad Waheed, brother of MDP shadow cabinet minister Mohamed Waheed; both Didi and Waheed were eventually pardoned on 22 February. This same demand on the part of the MDP had also stalled the first round of Commonwealth-mediated all-party talks, however, originally scheduled for September 2005.

Despite the pullout by the main opposition, Commonwealth representatives did receive input from other political parties. On 9 February, a government spokesperson confirmed that, given the "slow pace" of the Special Majlis, Commonwealth officials would be taking on the responsibility of drafting the new Constitution, due by April. Confusion has since arisen as to whether Maldivian law actually allows for this Commonwealth intervention. While the Constitutional Assembly is allowed to use expert advisors, the request legally needs to come from the newly-elected Research and Drafting Committee – from within the Special Majlis, and not from the government.

Foot-dragging
Reform has been slow in the Maldives, with the People's Special Majlis (the Constitutional Assembly created in 2004 to oversee democratic changes to the Constitution) taking more than a year to decide on its own procedural rules, a task that is still not completely finished. The official displeasure with the Assembly's sluggishness is at odds with the overriding sense by many in the Maldives that President Gayoom himself, despite his assurances to the contrary, is successfully attempting to slow – or even reverse – the pace at which his regime is taking on promised reforms. In the face of his government's landmark recognition of the country's political parties, for instance, President Gayoom barred candidates from implying party affiliations during Constitutional Assembly elections held in December. After Foreign Minister Ahmed Shaheed went on state television the day before the 24 January demonstration and lauded a recent trip abroad by suggesting that "the international community is very pleased with the way [the] reform agenda is going", the European Union issued an unusually sharp rebuttal, calling for President Gayoom's administration to speed up the implementation of overdue reform measures. The statement echoed near-universal condemnation on the part of the international community for the lethargy perceived in Male's governmental corridors.

President Gayoom's response to the criticism was indirect. Two days after the 27 January EU statement, the first weekly session of the Special Majlis was again forced to cancel due to a lack of quorum, when only two of President Gayoom's unelected appointees to the Assembly showed up for work. The agenda item waiting for discussion that day was exactly this powerful loophole in the Special Majlis composition, which allows the President himself to appoint 30 percent of the Assembly's members and also gives him veto power over any legislation the Assembly passes. Indeed, in a major reform speech in 2004, President Gayoom himself had originally proposed that both assemblies be made more equitable, subsequently including these elements in a list of reforms that he later presented to the Special Majlis. Since then, however, the president appears to have become worried about losing his influence in both assemblies, and changed his mind. Pending opposition proposals could now have stripped those abilities, with the MDP having long argued that only those who have been democratically elected should be allowed to debate constitutional changes; the issue was given more space than any other in the 5 August memorandum.

The previous day, a petition signed by 61 of the 113 Special Majlis members (allegedly initiated by the President himself) had called to drop from the agenda those items dealing with the amendments relating to the Special Majlis composition. Even as the Special Majlis Deputy Speaker suspended the Assembly for a week to mull over the matter, around 200 protestors outside of the Majlis House reacted animatedly to the news of the petition, jeering at officials leaving the grounds. At the end of that week, on 5 February, the government indefinitely suspended the Special Majlis due to security concerns, in response to the petition-related demonstrations. Both the People's Majlis and the People's Special Majlis would reconvene only "after strengthening security" in the area, a government press release stated, blaming "MDP activists … in what is widely believed to be a calculated plan to block the constitutional reform process." When the Special Majlis was set to convene on 19 February, the 29 unelected members, along with 16 other presidential appointees, again failed to show up to a session that was slated to debate their potential removal from the Assembly. The lack of quorum cancelled the Special Majlis for a third session in a row.

Media reform
Until just a few years ago, public demonstrations in the Maldives were very rare. Even while public sentiment has moved into the streets, however, the Maldivian press is still labouring under repressive conditions. In their 2005 report, the press freedoms watchdog Reporters Sans Frontiers ranked the Maldives 148th out of 167 countries – the same position occupied the previous year by Iraq. The past year saw scores of Maldivian journalists being arrested, intimidated or violently harassed for being vocal against the government, which also reportedly attempted recently to cancel a BBC media-training course due to worries that it was "too political". In 2005 the government did decide to open electronic media regulations to potential private broadcasters, but the single state-owned television and radio broadcasts still dominate the market. The few licenses that the government has granted prohibit broadcasting news other than from the state-owned stations.

In late December, the government even reached beyond its borders in an attempt to silence an MDP-run radio and news organisation based in Colombo. Acting on false accusations of arms dealing made by authorities in Male (alleged to have been the Maldivian chief of police), Sri Lankan police officers raided the radio and print offices of Minivan, a press group started in July 2005; finding no evidence supporting the claims, however, Sri Lankan officials announced the case closed. Nonetheless, the action scared two journalists in Sri Lanka enough to leave the country, and Radio Minivan temporarily ceased broadcasting. The action was not unprecedented, however, with Reporters Sans Frontiers accusing Male of "repeatedly manipulating" the international policing organisation Interpol, with similar baseless accusations against critical journalists and activists in 2002, 2003 and 2004.

A new media reform bill is scheduled to go before the Majlis in early March. Government officials emphasise that the new legislation would entrench press freedoms, standardise access to information, allow the Ministry of Information no oversight over media workers, and "ensure nothing stops journalists as long as they comply with Article 25 of the Constitution." Article 25 ensures citizens freedoms of expression, unless prohibited "in the interest of protecting the sovereignty of the Maldives, of maintaining public order and of protecting the basic tenets of Islam." The new bill would also allow for transgressors to be penalised only through the judicial system – which critics have attacked as offering scant comfort, with the courts still under the thumb of the president.

Fragile economy
As recently as 2004, the Maldives was the fastest-growing economy in the region. The 26 December 2004 tsunami dealt a huge blow to the economy and crippled the country's infrastructure, however, with damage equivalent to more than 60 percent of the country's GDP. Accounting for a third of total GDP, the tourism industry was hurt not just by the loss of a quarter of the 87 resorts that dot the archipelago, but also by the intangible dent in tourist confidence. By early October, President Gayoom reported that tourism numbers were down by 600,000 – a nearly forty percent drop that translated to a loss of more than USD 40 million. By September the economy was in a recession, having gone from an 8 percent growth rate in 2004 to shrinking by 2 percent in 2005, with government officials ruing the economy's worst situation in decades.

Rebuilding and attempts to soothe tourist jitters have been met with some success, with arrival numbers soaring unexpectedly and reports of resorts being over-filled. Utilising the recent scare, however, one Maldivian human rights group is now focusing specifically on that economic vulnerability. On 10 December 2005, World Human Rights Day, a UK-based group called for a boycott of 23 of the country's resorts, which they claimed had links to President Gayoom or his supporters. Due to the "fragile" nature of the Maldives' tourism-based economy, the group emphasises that they are not advocating for tourists to stay away from the country. Rather, the boycott "has been developed by Maldivians who feel that tourism to these specific resorts has enabled President Gayoom to maintain his power base and stranglehold over the Maldivian people."

Despite the recent tourism jump, the government claims that the tsunami set back development in the Maldives by two decades. With focused international campaigns targeting the already-weakened economy and popular sentiment spilling out into the country's public spaces, the worry now must be that the current economic fragility and political instability will continue to build upon one another. In mid-February, the Maldives Association of Tourism Industry (MATI) sent the government a post-tsunami proposal package aimed at restarting and ensuring continued tourism revenue. In the communication, MATI urged the Tourism Ministry to engage in research on why markets that have long had good relations with the Maldives are now searching for alternative destinations. Were such a trend to continue, it would not only be painful for the citizens of Southasia's smallest country, but potentially disastrous for its government.