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.
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.
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