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Maldives political reforms cosmetic - opposition
03 Sep 2004 07:55:29 GMT
Source: Reuters
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COLOMBO, Sept 3 (Reuters) - The chief political opponent of Maldives President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom on Friday accused Asia's longest serving ruler of continuing to stifle democracy despite his pledges of reform. Mohamed Latheef, head of the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party, said Gayoom's move this week to give up the key defence and finance portfolios he has held in the idyllic Indian Ocean holiday island cluster was just cosmetic. "It is a veneer," said Latheef, who lives in self-imposed exile in neighbouring Sri Lanka. "At the end of the day...he is still the commander-in-chief. He completely and utterly still holds all the strings. He's an out and out despot." Gayoom's decision to hand the two portfolios to cabinet ministers and to put civilians in charge of the police came a fortnight after thousands of residents took to the streets of the capital, Male, to protest for change. That protest, which Gayoom clamped down on with truncheon wielding police who herded up dissidents, in turn came after a surprise riot last year that was sparked by prison abuse. But although he pledged in June to ease his stranglehold on power, after stern criticism from human rights groups, political opposition parties like the Maldivian Democratic Party are still effectively barred under the constitution. "He probably will allow political parties of his choosing, tailormade to suit him. But in the meantime all the political opponents are in jail," Latheef said. "The changes are cosmetic." "The main reason they are in jail is that in October you will have the new elections to the parliament, and once he denies all those people their right, he will have a parliament of his choice," he added. Gayoom has vowed to limit the term of the presidency, allow opposition parties to operate and to bolster the judiciary -- which Amnesty International says is regularly abused. Political analysts said the push for democracy in the Maldives looked to be gathering momentum. "The Maldives needs to reform itself completely ... the patchwork (approach) will not work in the Maldives," said Sunanda Deshapriya, an analyst with Colombo-based thinktank the Centre for Policy Alternatives. "People really need a change in the electoral system, the parliamentary system. They need press freedoms. The desire for democracy in the Maldives society, especially in the business communities, is ... really getting momentum, dynamism." Reform activists have promised more street protests in the coming months if Gayoom does not address brewing discontent in the mostly Muslim nation of 300,000. Isolated from the capital on far-flung islands, the Maldives staple tourist industry has been insulated from the unrest. Many tourists who visited luxury resorts on the archipelago of 1,200 tiny islands and white sand atolls dotted across 500 miles (800 km) off the toe of India, barely noticed when Tamils from neighbouring Sri Lanka staged a short-lived coup bid in 1988.
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