Asia's Obama


Written by Irsa Khan • Region • September 2010

9-1 Internationally recognized for his efforts to protect the environment and to fight for human rights, President Mohammad Nasheed of the Maldives finds himself running into rough weather on the political front.

For a country that had been under dictatorial rule for past thirty years, climbing up the Reporters Without Borders' global press freedom index (2009) to the 52nd place and receiving the highest number of votes in any UN election to win a seat on the human rights council (in May this year) is undoubtedly an achievement. And the credit goes to none other than Maldives' President Mohammad Nasheed.

It was with the arrival of Mohamed Nasheed as the elected president of the Maldives in late 2008, that the country started making positive news in the media. Ending Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's 30 years of rule, Nasheed brought into office the hopes and aspirations of the Maldives' 350,000 people. And since then he has never looked back.

The British-educated president started by releasing journalists and prisoners of conscience incarcerated by the former regime, closing down a notorious jail where dissidents were held and tortured. He won further trust of his people by forgoing the opulence of Gayoom's palaces and Mercedes, choosing instead to live in a modest bungalow and walk to work.

However, the president claimed much appreciation for his efforts to combat climate change, winning a clutch of environmental awards during his short term in office. His continuous zeal to highlight the threat climate change poses to the beautiful archipelago nation gathered much international attention. Equally appreciated were his promises last year to make his country go carbon-neutral within a decade.

And his were not just words. The country made another leap when many of its government officials donned their wetsuits and dove into the seabed of the Indian Ocean for their weekly Cabinet Meeting to draw the world's attention to the global warming threat they are facing. With bubbles rising from his face mask and fish swimming around him, President Nasheed signed a declaration calling for global cuts in carbon emissions that was later presented before a UN climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December last year.

Also referred to as ‘Asia's Obama' by the international press, President Nasheed has also been recognized for his human rights work. Last year he was awarded Sweden's prestigious Anna Lindh prize for improving rights and freedoms in the Maldives.

However, like any other determined leader, things have not always gone Nasheed's way. He has run into trouble attempting to dismantle the corrupt political and business network that kept Gayoom and his family in power. The democratic revolution that brought Mohammed Nasheed to power is under threat-and not from an Opposition that is motivated by different policies or principles, but by raw economic self interest. The seriousness behind the intent of the Maldives to recover huge stolen assets-some $400 million, which today resides in foreign bank accounts has alarmed Gayoom and his close supporters and family, who it is alleged have paid off enough Opposition MPs to make the Maldives more or less un-governable.

Moreover, President Nasheed's initiative to break up the patronage system and free people to lead independent lives, introduction of state pension, universal health insurance and a public transport network to connect the country's disparate island communities, along with his attempts to stamp out corruption as made him the most undesirable person for the former rulers.

Should the international community and media turn a blind eye to the machinations of these and others, the Maldives will drift back to dictatorship, possibly a dictatorship with a hardline Islamic influence.

Most Maldivians clearly don't want this. Nor should the rest of the World.