Maldives slams 'mediator' India

MALE: India's effort to play peacemaker between Maldivian president Waheed Hassan Manik and his deposed predecessor Mohamed Nasheed has left the Indian High Commission in the Maldives capital a virtual war room.

From the outside, the Indian mission on the Indian Ocean island remained closed and deserted on Thursday, but diplomatic circles were on an overdrive, as the Male government hit out at India, saying in its statement about Nasheed, who's hiding in the mission to escape arrest, that India was "undermining Maldives's democratic institutions."

Later in the day, Indian external affairs minister Salman Khurshid spoke to his counterpart Abdul Samad Abdullah in a bid to defuse the situation, but by Thursday evening, India was seen more as a protector of Nasheed than a mediator for democracy. Nasheed's Maldivian Democratic Party, meanwhile, has stated that its leader would remain in the Indian High Commission till Waheed is replaced by a caretaker government to ensure a free and fair election in September.

What appears to have infuriated the Maldivian government is India's choice of words while stating that it has taken up Nasheed's matter with the Maldivian authorities. Referring to Nasheed, MEA spokesman Syed Akbaruddin, who was in Delhi, had on Wednesday said that "presidential nominees of recognized political parties should be free to participate in the elections without any hindrance."

On Thursday, the Maldivian government reacted angrily, saying its election commission had not announced the candidates for the elections. "It is unfortunate that the government of India has decided to comment on the types of candidates that could contest the upcoming presidential elections in Maldives scheduled for September 2013 ...

" ... The elections commission of Maldives is fully capable of evaluating and deciding eligibility of nominees in the elections and carrying forward a credible electoral process. To presume otherwise would be undermining the democratic institutions of the country and the progress achieved by the Maldives in consolidating its democracy." It added that the Indian authorities had not held talks with it.

While India chose not to issue a public retort, Nasheed went on the offensive against Waheed. "The events of the past year - mass arrests, police brutality, politically motivated trials - demonstrate that Waheed cannot be trusted to hold a free and fair election," he said on the website of his political party.

Nasheed's party colleagues said he would not leave the Indian High Commission despite the Maldivian government's assurance that he would not be arrested. Nasheed took refuge at the Indian mission in Male on Wednesday afternoon fearing arrest following a warrant by a local court in connection with the alleged detention of the chief judge of a criminal court during his presidency in January 2012.

Nasheed, who became the first democratically elected president of Maldives in 2008, was ousted last year in what he called a coup, following protests against the judge's arrest. Waheed, then the vice-president, succeeded him.

Source: http://timesofindia.feedsportal.com/fy/8at2EtZ0k4o3945x/story01.htm

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