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| Maldives to implement sweeping reforms despite protests | |
| 2005-08-17 | |
| COLOMBO - The Indian Ocean state of the Maldives will press ahead with reforms despite political protests that have seen the arrest of more than 100 anti-government activists, Foreign Minister Ahmed Shaheed told AFP. The government will stick to an original schedule to have a fully-fledged democratic system in the nation of 300,000 before the end of 2005, the 41-year-old minister said in an interview in Colombo. âIt is not just a multi-party system we are talking about, but an electoral system, a judiciary and a media that will also go with that,â Shaheed said. He said the government had secured the support of two European experts to set up an electoral system for the former British protectorate, which for the first time wants to conduct multi-party parliamentary elections. The nation of Sunni Muslims will also for the first time have independent commissions to run the civil service, the judiciary and to conduct elections, while there will also be an independent press complaints commission, he said. âWe have already fast-tracked the process and judges are being trained, the electoral system is being drawn up,â Shaheed said. âThis is a tremendous task, but we will have it as the president promised by the end of the year.â
Anti-government demonstrations and protests since the weekend have gripped the capital island of Male where about a third of the nationâs population lives. Shaheed said about 130 people were in custody by Tuesday morning, including the main opposition leader Mohamed Nasheed who was taken in on Friday. âWe will release him soon if there are no charges against him,â Shaheed said before accusing Nasheedâs Maldivian Democratic Party of creating trouble and trying to push the country into anarchy. âWe knew they would try to create violence and that is exactly what they did. We have arrested about 130 people by Tuesday morning for creating violence and causing trouble. âThey (the MDP) have no political plan. They have no proper program. All they want to do is to push the country into anarchy. I think the moderates within the MDP are not happy with this situation.â He said dissidents who were for the first time allowed to carry out political activities openly had launched the campaign to demand Gayoomâs ouster without offering any political alternative. âAll they say is Gayoom should go. But if Gayoom goes tomorrow, we will have chaos,â the minister said. âWe want democracy and what we see is that with democracy we canât expect everyone who comes in to be a liberal.â Another leading Maldivian dissident based in Colombo, Mohamed Latheef, said a major crackdown on opposition activists was under way despite Gayoomâs pledge to allow political pluralism. Latheef said his activist daughter had been arrested on Friday and subsequently released, but her whereabouts were unknown. âThere is a major crackdown going on and we feel we are isolated,â Latheef told AFP. He said the capital was tense amid mounting protests against the administration. However, foreign minister Shaheed said the situation was slowly returning to normal as the government had used âminimum forceâ to contain the protests. | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 I could be wrong, but the Maldives locals is probably in no mood for the title "Maldives To Implement Waves Of Sweeping Reforms." |
| Posted by: Poison Reverse 2005-08-17 11:27 |