Open Democracy October 15, 2013
Should Britain, the United States and others who claim to be concerned, stand by and allow reactionary forces to stage-manage a phony election, this sends yet another inconsistent and disheartening message to those struggling for peaceful democratic change in the Islamic world and beyond. In the latest episode of what appears to be a serial coup in the Maldives, the country’s Supreme Court… threw out the results of the first round of presidential elections just hours before the scheduled date of the second round in which pro-democracy leader Mohamed Nasheed was expected to win handily…
Category: Maldives
Apparent Fraud in Maldivian Elections Threatens Prospects for Democracy
Open Democracy September 7, 2013
Dr. Zunes talks about a number of troubling indicators that major fraud may have occurred in the election held on September 7, which raises questions regarding the integrity of the September 28 runoff…
Democracy Imperiled in the Maldives
8 March 2012 at OpenDemocracy, Salem News (Oregon), Huffington Post
and International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC)
Well before the launch of the Arab Spring, the people of the Maldives, a Muslim nation located on a tropical archipelago in the Indian Ocean, were engaged in widespread nonviolent resistance against the 30-year reign of the corrupt and autocratic president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. The growing civil insurrection forced the dictator to finally allow for free elections in October 2008, which he lost. This triumph for democracy is now threatened as a result of a coup last month led by allies of the former dictator and hardline Islamists.