MDP, Conservatives Call For Protection For Gayoom Post-Presidency

The Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) and visiting UK MP Richard Spring, from the Conservative Party, this week renewed calls for President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom to be offered security protection after his presidency concludes.

According to information minister Mohamed Nasheed, writing on his personal blog, Spring raised the issue with Gayoom when the two met on 30 July.

And Spring and MDP presidential candidate Mohamed Nasheed (Anni) told MDP supporters at the party’s Harugé centre on Thursday the MDP would support reconciliation if it came to power.

But Anni would not comment on speculation that the proposal was aimed at offering Gayoom, who has ruled the country for 30 years, an incentive to withdraw his candidacy ahead of the country’s first multi-party presidential elections, due by 10 October.

Urging the party to follow the example of past South African leader Nelson Mandela, Spring said on Thursday: “He came out of jail and said there should be no punishment against those who abused him.”

Anni said the gesture aimed to show “we are not in politics for a vendetta...former presidents should be able to live in dignity.” He had first publicly raised the idea of protection for Gayoom in December in an apparent attempt to appeal to moderates within the MDP.

Asked whether he would call for legal immunity for the President, or just security protection, Anni said he “cannot offer anything above the law”.

The country’s new constitution, which Gayoom has said he will ratify on 7 August, does not offer former presidents legal immunity, though it does give a limited immunity from civil cases whilst a president is in office.

Information minister Nasheed said on his blog that Spring had told him “the ‘outgoing’ president [should] be provided with security for life as regards his person and his civil liberties”, adding that Spring emphasised Anni should communicate this personally to Gayoom prior to elections.

Former president Ibrahim Nasir, who conceded the presidency voluntarily in 1978, was sentenced by Gayoom in 1981 for alleged corruption and planning a coup attempt against the Gayoom administration.

He was later pardoned, but has lived in Singapore since his presidency ended, never returning to the Maldives.

Nasir’s brother-in-law Ahmed Naseem and others were sentenced to life in 1981 over the alleged coup attempt, though they were later released, whilst Gayoom and other political leaders held meetings to denounce Nasir’s presidency.

Presidential candidate for the Social Liberal Party Ibrahim Ismail (Ibra) said, “If [the MDP] is referring to the witch hunt that happened after Gayoom came to power, I would be inclined to agree that there shouldn’t be something like this.”

But he cautioned, “If an individual wants to seek redress [against Gayoom], and has justifiable grounds, then the courts should be handling it.”

The Gayoom government has been repeatedly accused of human rights abuses, whilst opposition activists including Anni have previously been named as Amnesty International prisoners of conscience.

Anni is one of six declared presidential candidates; others are Ibra, Umar Naseer of the Islamic Democratic Party, independent candidates Dr Hassan Saeed and Idham Muiz Adnan, and Gayoom.