BEHIND MALDIVES’ GLAMOR, A STRUGGLING DEMOCRACY

[But after Mr. Nasheed left office last week in what he says was a coup, the government issued a warrant for his arrest on unspecified criminal charges and invited members of the business elite and representatives of the former dictatorship to join the cabinet, raising fears among many people here that the country’s progress toward democracy may be slipping away.]

By Vikas Bajaj

Chiara Goia for The New York Times

Protesters in Male, Maldives, met near Parliament to back 

the former president.

MALE, Maldives — For much of the world, the Maldives means idyllic and exclusive beach resorts, a kind of G-rated version of Thailand, but for many of the people who live here it has been no paradise.

For most of the last three decades, the country’s autocratic ruler pursued policies that kept many Maldivians poor while extending a warm welcome to well-heeled foreign tourists, including the likes of Tom Cruise and Madonna. Those visitors helped bankroll the government and have made the Maldives, a sprawl of more than 1,200 islands dotted across the Indian Ocean, the most prosperous country in South Asia.

That arrangement started to give way in 2008, when the country held its first democratic elections, installing a charismatic activist, Mohamed Nasheed, as president.

But after Mr. Nasheed left office last week in what he says was a coup, the government issued a warrant for his arrest on unspecified criminal charges and invited members of the business elite and representatives of the former dictatorship to join the cabinet, raising fears among many people here that the country’s progress toward democracy may be slipping away.

“There were so many people my age who wanted to bring this change,” said Hassan Hameez, 39, who runs a diving and tour business. Now, he said, he fears the future “will be the same as the time of the ’80s and ’90s.”

Though the Maldives is a tiny country of only about 400,000 people, the turmoil here has attracted the attention of the United States, Britain, India and other countries because of its location near busy, pirate-infested shipping lanes, and as a result of concerns that Islamists, who have grown bolder in recent years, could gain a bigger foothold here.

On Saturday, an American envoy met with both sides here to encourage the formation of a unity government, in an apparent bid for stability, while avoiding talking about whether Mr. Nasheed had been displaced in a coup.

On Sunday, the new president, Mohammed Waheed Hassan, moved forward with what he called a unity government, which lacked the backing of Mr. Nasheed. Mr. Hassan swore in new members of his cabinet, including leaders from the party of the former autocrat, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled the Maldives for 30 years, and politicians who have argued that the country’s laws should adhere to a stricter interpretation of Islamic teachings.

The appointments signaled that Mr. Hassan was moving to consolidate power and isolate Mr. Nasheed, who had said his party would not join the new government.

Later Sunday night, several hundred Nasheed supporters protested in front of the Majlis, the Maldivian legislature, demanding the release of one of the party’s representatives from police custody. They were dispersed by riot police officers but returned a few hours later before being chased away again.

The recent turmoil in Maldives, a Muslim country that had its Arab Spring-like moment several years before the events in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, suggests that the path from autocracy to democracy will likely be slow and rocky. Institutions like the judiciary and the police seem to be lagging behind, so far not proving strong, professional and fair enough for their new roles.

“I don’t see any reason to assume that a transition to a democracy setup would work like clicking a switch,” said Teresita C. Schaffer, who was American ambassador to the Maldives and nearby Sri Lanka during the early 1990s. “Having difficulty working out their differences is something you have to expect from a country transitioning to a democracy.”

A major flashpoint has been Mr. Nasheed’s effort to reform a judiciary that was largely staffed by loyalists to the old government. The Judicial Services Commission failed to take action against judges accused of turning a blind eye to accusations of corruption by former officials, some of them involving land deals for resorts.

In January, Mr. Nasheed ordered his army to arrest one of those judges, Abdulla Mohamed, who heads the country’s criminal court, which appears to have set in motion the events leading to his ouster. Opposition political parties, and even Mr. Nasheed’s vice president, criticized the move as an unconstitutional overreach of authority.

At the same time, other political groups opened another line of attack by criticizing Mr. Nasheed for not protecting Islam by, among other things, allowing massage parlors in Male, even though they had long existed on resorts on islands where no Maldivians live.

Last Tuesday some police officers joined the protests, and Mr. Nasheed stepped down. While Mr. Nasheed has argued that he was forced out, Mr. Hassan says he resigned voluntarily.

“This was a new beginning we got,” said Aishath Velezinee, a former member of the judicial commission who has criticized the body. As to Mr. Nasheed’s effort to reform the judiciary, he said, “We failed.”

A half-dozen Maldivians interviewed Sunday on a small working-class island, Villingili, a 10 minute ferry ride west of the capital, expressed frustration with the recent turmoil and the stalled progress toward democracy.

Faithimath, a law student who asked she be referred to by only one name because she feared retaliation, said she feared that the country was succumbing to another bout of brutality. “When I was really young, I have seen people taken away in handcuffs for expressing their political opinion,” she said. “That shouldn’t happen.”

Others, like Sofwan Waheed, who sells and markets technology equipment, said leaders on both sides were politicizing religion even as the country was losing its identify to Westernization. He said high school students had easy access to alcohol and drugs like heroin andmarijuana, which bothered him. It was fine for foreigners to drink alcohol on resorts, he said, “But we have a different culture. We need to maintain that.”

Another boat ride, 10 minutes north on a speedboat to the Kurumba resort where rooms rent from between $200 and $2,000 a night, offered a different scene.

Tourists from Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Turkey lay on beach chairs, swam in the clear blue waters and played with their children. Nearby workers put white cloth and ribbons on a table set for three on a little concrete pier jutting out into the water. The resort’s general manger, Jason Kruse, said that there had been only a few cancellations because of the political turmoil and that the resort was at 98 percent occupancy.

Selcuk Abul, a Turkish bank manager, was in the Maldives for the first time on a trip with 16 colleagues, a company-paid bonus for a job well done. He said he loved the country and would come again with his wife and their two sons, ages 11 and 7.

“It’s really fantastic,” he said. “It’s heaven.”

@  The NewYork Times

FORMER KING GYANENDRA'S INDIA VISIT FUELS SPECULATION IN NEPAL

[Gyanendra is in New Delhi for over two weeks following a vist to Jaipur for a private function. Although his India visit was earlier scheduled for two weeks, his stay in India has been extended beyond one month, fueling speculation here. The visit of the former monarch to India comes amid the stalled 2006 peace process. ]

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Kathmandu: An extended private visit of Nepal's ousted king Gyanendra has sparked speculation here, amid the political crisis that has stalled the peace process in the country. 

Gyanendra is in New Delhi for over two weeks following a vist to Jaipur for a private function. Although his India visit was earlier scheduled for two weeks, his stay in India has been extended beyond one month, fueling speculation here. The visit of the former monarch to India comes amid the stalled 2006 peace process. 

Gyanendra's personal aide Sagar Timilsina told Kantipur daily that the ex-monarch has extended his stay in Delhi for personal work, withour giving any details. 

According to the daily, Gyanendra was seeking "political meetings" in Delhi. 

Guna Raj Luitel of the Annapurna Post daily saw a link between the prolonged stay of Gyanendra in Delhi and the current political deadlock in Kathmandu. 

The prolonged stay of Gyanendra in Delhi and the ongoing political deadlock in Nepal are not just coincidences, he said. 

Pointing to the daily hardship facing the people due to lack of essential items, such as cooking gas, petroleum products and 12 hour daily power cuts, he said: "It has only worsened the situation in which people have begun to lose faith in the democratic system." 

Against this is the failure of the government to conclude the peace process, he said. 

The paralysis has fuelled public anger in what is one of the world's poorest nations -- all a far cry from the euphoria and optimism that followed the end of the civil war and the abolition of the unpopular monarchy. 

This is the third visit to India by Gyanendra after the monarchy was abolished in Nepal in May 2008.

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