The end is nigh and President Gayyoom, wavering on the edge of a precipice looks as though the slightest nudge could send him plummeting down into a political abyss.
On August 12, 2005, when Gayyoom dragged his most vocal opponent, Mohamed Nasheed, the Chairperson of the Maldivian Democratic Party, from the Republican Square to the adjacent headquarters of the Maldives Police Services, like a sack of potatoes and charged him with terrorism, he may have figured that his problems were over. Little did he realize that he had set in motion a chain of events which can have only one plausible ending: it marked the beginning of the end of his 27 year old love-affair with power.
The arrest of Nasheed (Anni) started a chain reaction that began with the masses uprising against Gayyoom and battling his police forces on the streets of the capital Male'. The unrest spread to the outlying islands, with the result that Gayyoom temporarily lost control of the two most densely populated atolls, the Addu and the Huvadhu chain.
President Gayyoom reacted with brute force, slamming down on all opposition and throwing the fear of Adam Zahir - his loyal Police Chief and professional torturer – into the masses. Gayyoom was able to regain his authority once more, a semblance of calm prevailing on the outside while the people seething with rage, were held in check by fear of Gayyoom's retribution.
While the opposition forces were thrown into disarray, Gayyoom delivered, what he figured was the coup de grace. He convinced a one-time erstwhile opponent, Qasim Ibrahim, backed by his millions of dollars, to join his fledgling party, the DRP. He may have thought that with this seemingly deft move that he'd get the big businessmen wavering on the edge of the political spectrum to join his party and thereby start a stampede of the masses which would ultimately help him regain his lost popularity.
Gayyoom did manage to divide the opposition MDP to some extent and weaken their ranks, but what he had not reckoned was that among the opposition there were a few die-hard elements that refused to be cowed or beaten. And when the European Union and the International Commission of Jurists stepped into the picture and warned Gayyoom off, those wavering amongst the MDP too regained their lost courage and rallied back to the fight.
The EU, with their insistence that ICJ should oversee that Nasheed's terrorism case complied with international norms of fair trial and that political reforms in the Maldives should be carried out with the involvement of both the opposition and the public, did most certainly throw a monkey wrench into the works.
Furthermore, the evidence concocted by the ever-vigilant police using a few simpletons on Thoddu Island fell to pieces when brought under the media microscope. Careful cross-questioning of some residents of Thoddu revealed that the alleged debate supposed to have taken place at the island 'holhuashi' and which formed the bulwark of the prosecution's case against Anni was a complete fabrication: Anni merely happened to walk past the 'holhuashi' on his way to the island jetty.
In order to appease the EU the government proposed that an all-party gathering be held to discuss the reform agenda and the MDP boycotted the meeting on the grounds their Chairperson was detained unlawfully, with the Adhaalath Party following suit
President Gayyoom who had hoped to steam roll the MDP Chairperson's case through the courts suddenly found himself on the defensive, looking for any excuse to delay passing judgment on Anni: he had inadvertently got embroiled in his own lies.
And into this melee has jumped in the local media. Particularly the Adduvas and Fiyes magazines. Sensing that Gayyoom has lost his teeth, they have begun ripping apart not only Gayyoom but the heretofore untouchable Qasim Ibrahim too. Even Ilyas Ibrahim who had managed to keep out of the limelight has become a media target. Having been muzzled throughout Gayyoom's reign of terror, the press today are having a Roman holiday and enjoying themselves.
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