Mohamed Nasheed, a former president of the Maldives now in exile in Britain after being ousted from office and jailed in his country, formed an opposition group yesterday aimed at toppling the government of President Abdulla Yameen.
Best known as a paradise for wealthy tourists, the Indian Ocean archipelago has been mired in political unrest since Nasheed, its first democratically elected leader, was ousted in disputed circumstances in 2012.
He was sentenced to 13 years in jail on terrorism charges after a trial in 2015 that was widely denounced as politically motivated, but flew to Britain in January after Yameen came under international pressure to let him leave.
He was given permission to stay away for 30 days for medical treatment but has remained in Britain since then and was last month granted refugee status by the British authorities, according to his lawyer.
At an event in London, Nasheed teamed up with Jameel Ahmed, who was Yameen’s running mate in 2013 but was sacked and accused of treason last year, to form a group calling itself the “Maldives United
Opposition”.
“We must understand that we have to come together. We have to be able to sit down, bridge our differences and hope for a better country,” Nasheed said.
Nasheed, the first democratically elected leader of the Maldives who was recently given political asylum in the United Kingdom, chose to take a back seat in the group with the post of adviser. “My supporters feel that the MDP should lead an opposition front. I think we need not always be leading, but must be ready to follow others,” Nasheed said at the launch.
The former president was forced out of office in 2012, just four years after his election, and was convicted and jailed on what were widely believed to have been trumped-up terrorism charges. On the world stage, he remains the most visible opposition Maldivian leader and is likely to play a leading behind-the-scenes role in the new
political formation.
In his time as vice-president in the Yameen regime, Jameel Ahmed said he noted with concern how Yameen’s foreign policy “contradicted our long-standing ties with our closest neighbour India. I was worried at the way he purposefully tried to alienate India by giving a more undemocratic nation limitless access.”
The Maldives government has criticised Nasheed for his activities since he arrived in Britain, saying it had acted in good faith by letting him travel abroad to seek treatment for a back condition but his medical leave had become
“media leave”.