Maldives: Is ‘Yumnu’s fall’ the ‘Evan Naseem moment’ for Muizzu?

Strange are the ways strong and at times autocratic government leaders in nations, big and small, end up facing unexpected political pressure from equally unexpected quarters, that too at an unexpected time. At a time when Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu is seen as consolidating political power in the long run-up to his 2028 re-election bid, mainly thanks to a series of legislative and executive measures taken by him, he is faced with a strong and unprecedented challenge to his leadership, which comes not from the trained and tested Opposition rivals but from mostly apolitical sections of the nation’s youth.

Right now, Maldivian students are protesting alleged governmental and police collusion to cover the culprits allegedly involved in what was originally dismissed as an accidental fall of a young girl from atop a multi-storey building in the capital, Male. However, reports that Hawwa Yumnu Rasheed, 21, was a part of a rave party involving drugs in a property owned by the family transport minister Mohamed Ameen before being found with broken limbs on the top of a neighbourhood warehouse, and his nephew was a part of the group of eight (or more?) that partied that night on 8 April, have all made it much more than callousness on the part of the police.

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It is now confirmed that there was a wanton attempt by police investigators to cover up the details and dismiss it as an accidental fall. The youth protest itself revolves around the same, as there are open charges that the police initially protected the boy, also in his twenties, who was said to have been with Yumnu at the time of her fall through the ninth-floor window.

Influential background

However, the ubiquitous social media personality ‘Hassan Kursee’ – some believe that it is former President Mohammed ‘Anni’ Nasheed, who has denied such speculation – broke the lid when he posted in great detail how Yumnu had left the party venue with a male friend and how CCTV footage of their greater proximity in another building had emerged along with their quarrelling soon thereafter. It soon became known that there was a deliberate attempt to divert public attention, and that Yumnu’s family and possibly the transport minister too were involved in the cover-up.

It was then that the youth began daily evening rallies that used to be the norm whenever the political Opposition of the day protested against the government leadership, whatever the issue. They wanted ‘Justice for Yumnu’, by demanding the exit of the police investigation officer, the nation’s police commissioner and minister Ameen, and also a public apology from President Muizzu before they talked to any individual official or team. The students suspected foul play and pointed to the influential family background of most members of the partying team. Among them was a grand nephew of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, sharing the family name.

After dilly-dallying initially, as others in his place had done in their time, Muizzu smelt the trouble in the air. He sacked the investigation officer and the police commissioner, Ali Shujau, the nation’s top cop, to resign. However, the president did not respond to the other two demands: for his tendering an apology and for sacking minister Ameen.

Independent probe

Muizzu has since ordered an ‘independent, apolitical’ investigation into the case by a three-member panel under former attorney general Mohamed Munavvar. However, Yumnu’s family refused to accept a probe by any commission and yet insisted on transparent investigations (by the police?).

Early on, one of the commission members, an orthopaedic surgeon, quit early on, and Muizzu ended up increasing the number by adding more members. This may not have helped matters, as commission chairman Munavvar has since recorded what he said was a ‘time lag’ between Yumnu’s fall from the nine-storey stairwell window and police investigations.

What makes the ‘Justice for Yumnu’ protest more potent and widespread than others of its kind, whether apolitical or otherwise, is the fact of the decision of Maldivian students in Malaysia to boycott Muizzu’s meeting with them during his maiden official visit to that country. According to reports, Team Muizzu had to cancel that engagement, even as at a Diaspora event, Yumnu’s sister cornered the visiting president with pointed questions.

As if such a goof-up was not enough, the government first announced that it would meet the full US $55,000 overseas medical expenses of Yumnu, who had a fractured chest and collar bones and muscle damage in multiple parts of the body, but cut down the contributions to less than the costs projected by a Malaysian hospital chosen by the family. Social media posts then claimed that the budget had been met through ‘crowdfunding’ but without confirmation.

Forced once again by the public mood and criticism, the government reversed the decision again and announced full payment of all medical expenses. The family has since confirmed that she had a successful collar-bone surgery (though it was only the beginning of her medical ordeal).

The parallel

Drawing a parallel to the possible politico-electoral impact of Yumnu’s fall on the contemporary political past of the nation, old-timers recall the ‘Evan Naseem incident’, in which an alleged bootlegger lost his life in a prison-riot in 2003. Ironically, his funeral rally became the first major focal-point of anti-government protests that contributed to the infant democracy movement and the defeat of Mumoon Gayoom in the first multi-party presidential poll of 2008 under a new constitution.

For now, the government has failed in its bid to paint the students’ protest with a political brush. As is known, the Opposition MDP’s evening rallies in ‘defence of democracy’ for a week attracted poor to very poor crowds, despite the party’s institutional organisational skills. Against this, the ‘Justice for Yumnu’ protests have drawn good-to-very-good crowds, pointing to the possible apolitical nature.

With presidential polls a full three years away, the question is if the students’ protest over the Yumnu issue is only a storm in a tea-cup or is the beginning of something bigger. In the past, the ‘Evan Naseem’ protests provided the general impetus to the political Opposition that was both divided and uninspired. The question now is if the Yumnu protests will play such a catalyst role against Muizzu during the long run-up to the next presidential poll.

The divided Opposition, unlike during Gayoom’s closing years as president, lacks credibility more than cohesion, which was the problem then. Yet, there is the real issue of disenchantment among the youth, which the leaders of the pro-democracy movement discovered somewhere in between and ‘exploited’ the same in politico-electoral terms. Today, the dispirited and divided Opposition are much less inspiring, owing mainly to their respective failures while in government.

Status, salaries

The Maldivian youth, then and now, however, want jobs that come with status and high salaries. Translated, it means government jobs, over and above which many now in service have been moonlighting outside office hours to make ends meet. Given the economic stress facing the country, more government jobs are out of the question. If anything, there are frequent reports of minor job losses in government or big plans for mass sacking.

The question is how the youth of the day would face up to the situation where the drug menace, too, has become more than at any time in the past. Muizzu chose to walk the tightrope on this count by banning cigarette imports and vapes, or ‘electronic cigarettes’, which used to be ‘economical’ in these days of high costs and low to inadequate incomes. For reasons that are apolitical, such measures have not gone down well with a vast majority of smokers across the country, who reportedly end up paying more for below-the-counter purchases of cigarettes, which are said to be available otherwise.

Then, there are the real-time democracy issues, to which the middle-age voters are still wedded, despite their disenchantment with early democracy leaders like President Nasheed and his estranged friend, Ibrahim ‘Ibu’ Solih, and the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), which the two of them heralded together but not anymore. Muizzu’s perceived anti-democracy initiatives of an anti-defection law first, followed now by pending legislative plans for replacing the present two-phase presidential polls with a single-phase, multi-round ‘preferential’ system of vote-count, have not gone down well, particularly with this section.

They are also said to resent the Muizzu-controlled Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) suspending three of the seven judges of the Supreme Court, just one hour before the Full Bench was set to hear petitions against the anti-defection law. With one of the three suspended judges quitting and being replaced with another, and the other two contesting the charges against them, the Supreme Court is in a limbo as far as constitutional matters are concerned.

In between, Muizzu sowed confusion within his ruling PNC ranks when he got the party-majority Parliament to pass a constitutional amendment to reverse the strength of the SC Bench to the original five – and yet returned the Bill without giving his assent. Today, despite political stability that is reinforced by the anti-defection law, the ruling party lacks energy, enthusiasm and direction.

Accidental candidate

Muizzu’s decision to cut party chairman and Parliament Speaker Abdul Raheem Abdulla ‘Adhurey’, his one-time mentor and chief political strategist, down to size by divesting the latter’s son, Ibrahim Faisal, of the all-important tourism minister’s job, did not go down well with a section of the ruling party. All of them, starting with Speaker Abdulla, are said to be lying low, simmering, however.

As if all this were not enough, Muizzu’s off-again-on-again sacking of top public servants and heads of public undertakings, as if by turn, even one and a half years after coming to power, has not done anything to keep the morale of the civil servants high. It is precisely the kind of political atmosphere that prevailed when the pro-democracy movement captured the mood and imagination of the country’s youth in the first decade of this century. The question is if contemporary history is repeating itself – and if so, is the discredited and hence demoralised Opposition ready to capitalise on the chinks in Muizzu’s political armour?

Alternatively, is President Muizzu willing to sit down, look back and rework his strategy, remembering all the time that he was an ‘accidental candidate’ after the Supreme Court upheld the presidential candidacy of his estranged mentor and former president, Abdulla Yameen, in the victorious 2023 polls? It is these non-fundamentalist conservative voters who had moved from Gayoom to his half-brother Yameen and then to Muizzu – and the latter’s personal contribution to building such a vote bank was/is next to nothing, to say the least. Hence, retaining the same vote bank and building upon it, if he were to face a common Opposition candidate that cost Yameen his re-election in 2018, in a second election in a row is not given, especially given the volatility of not only the young voters but also others, too.

Pro-Palestine protest

In this background, the decision of Islamic Affairs Minister Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed has declared his intention to rejoin the religion-centric Adhaalath Party (AP), now in the Opposition, and contest the party’s presidential election later this year. Shaheem held the same portfolio under President Nasheed (2008-12) and was the running-mate of losing incumbent rival Yameen in 2018 and crossed over to the Muizzu camp when the Yameen camp split vertically on the eve of the 2023 presidential poll.

Shaheem has since contested AP’s long-time president Imran Abdulla’s suggestion that for joining and contesting the organisational election, the minister should quit the government. This raises the question of whether Shaheem intends to challenge Muizzu from inside or outside or only Imran’s leadership of the AP before bringing it into the Muizzu government, one way or the other.

Such current moves may have drawn inspiration from the substantial crowds that gathered at the pro-Palestine apolitical rally called by religious NGOs in the capital, Male, a couple of weeks back. As media reports pointed out, there were more ISIS flags than those of Palestine or even the Maldives in the rally that was said to be dominated by radical Islamic groups like the Salafi.

Independent sources contest suggestions about a possible shoot-up in Salafi influence in the nation’s politics after Muizzu became president – only because his late father-in-law was the founder of the fundamentalist Islamic movement in the country and his brother-in-law is heading it at present. Instead, they justify the massive crowds at the pro-Palestine protest by the apolitical nature of the issue, as members, supporters and sympathisers of all political parties too joined in, along with those that are politically neutral and non-committed.

That is still saying a lot for what is in store for the country – or is it?

The writer is a Chennai-based Policy Analyst & Political Commentator. Email: sathiyam54@nsathiyamoorthy.com. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.