After jail, disqualification, Maldives’ Abdulla Yameen needs time and loyalists

A criminal court in capital Male has sentenced former Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen to a total of 11 years – four for corruption and seven for money-laundering -– disqualifying him from contesting the presidential polls that is due in the fourth quarter of 2023. The Opposition PPM-PNC combine named him as their presidential candidate a few months back, and he now has time until nomination time to obtain an appellate acquittal, as in a first of three near-similar cases, with the Election Commission promising the poll-schedule before the end of this year.

As per Article 109 (f) of the multi-party Constitution of 2008, apart from other qualifications, the President should “not have been convicted of a criminal offence and sentenced to a term of more than twelve months, unless a period of three years has elapsed since his release… Unless the appellate court(s) acquit(s) him, Yameen cannot contest any election three years after the serving out his prison term – or a total of 14 years if the sentence stands.  If it is the presidency, he will become qualified to contest the election only in 2038, age 78 years.

Yameen’s immediate problem will be to find an acceptable stand-by candidate, if not replacement, until the disposal of the final appeal, which would lie in the supreme court. The PPM-PNC combine had jumped the gun by proclaiming him as their presidential candidate months back, as if it could protect him a judicial conviction and consequent disqualification.

In the process, the Yameen camp is now caught in the middle, as naming an alternate candidate would send out a wrong message to the cadres. Minus Yameen personally, there could be various aspirants, and a weakened Yameen would find it difficult to have his way, another without a primary or a show-down of some kind.

Transferrable votes

Despite contesting on his own and despite the allegations of electoral high-handedness when he was seeking re-election as the incumbent in 2018, Yameen polled a respectable 42-per cent vote-share against a high 58 per cent for the victorious MDP candidate, Ibrahim ‘Ibu’ Solih, now President.

There is no guarantee that the combine has retained all those votes and can build upon it to cross the mandatory 50-per cent mark for a victory, whether in the first round or in the second, run-off round, if their candidate is one of the top two in the former. Nor is there no way of knowing if Yameen could ‘transfer’ whatever vote-share from the past that may still be with him, to a third candidate, even of his choice.

In between, there will be continuing confusion about the appeal court(s) acquitting Yameen, for him to return as the party candidate. That is to say, the ‘interim candidate’ of his choice should be willing to readily step aside in such a scenario. If there is no acquittal until at least nominations close for the presidential poll, and Yameen is available for campaign for his replacement-candidate, that throws up a different situation.

Under such a situation, if there is hope of the PPM-PNC nominee being elected President, Yameen would be looking for a candidate who would be taking care of his interests while in office, for him to be able to contest another presidential poll, with a hope of victory. Article 109 (f) provides for ‘presidential pardon’ as an alternative to serving out the full term.  In this case, the question of three additional years of disqualification also does not arise.

Doubly lucky?

According to the Constitution, if the President quits, then the Vice-President completes his term, as in the US. This means, not only the presidential candidate but his running-mate also has to be a Yameen loyalist to the core.

Yet, the Constitution also provides that if the presidency and the vice-presidency fall vacant at the same time, then, the Speaker of Parliament would officiate for 60 days, until the Election Commission (EC) conducts another poll for the high office. At present, Mohammed ‘Anni’ Nasheed, chief of the ruling MDP rival, who himself is a presidential aspirant contesting the party primary, is the Speaker.

It means that Yameen and his PPM-PNC combine have to be doubly lucky for them the win the presidency first and the parliamentary polls, which is due about six months later, for them also to have a loyalist Speaker of their choice. That is a lot of if’s and but’s, whichever way one looks at it -– hence, the proverbial slip in between…

All of it means that Yameen has only one real and comfortable chance, if it came to that. It is to get a final acquittal from the supreme court, where the time-line (before the nominations close) too would matter as much, if not more. As may be recalled, the supreme court has once earlier over-turned the conviction and sentence, handed down to Yameen in the first of three near-similar cases on allegations of money-laundering and attendant corruption in the allotment of uninhabited islands for developing tourist resorts, as is the norm.

Journalist’s death

This time, too, the criminal court has  fined Yameen, $ 5-million, which is the mandated maximum of $ 1-m of laundered money, with a six-month time for repayment. Under similar circumstances, the supreme court had taken the lid off on the payment-schedule, to the interim advantage of Yameen.

Trial in the third case is part-heard, and a verdict can be expected in a few months’ time. In the normal course, the two-stage appeals in the two cases should not take too much time. However, in the first case, the acquittal was unusually delayed, especially in the high court, owing to Covid lock-down.

The Yameen camp can now be expected to appeal against the verdict in the high court. From there, it could then go to the supreme court. His PPM-PNC leaders have declared that they “will do everything to save Yameen” and have appealed to the cadres, “not to lose hope”.

These apart, the government is also yet to follow up on the delayed report of the Solih-appointed Disappearances and Deaths Commission (DDCom,) that the police could have prevented the murder of journalist Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla, 28, by religious extremists.

The report found that six men had kidnapped and beheaded Rilwan for his independent views, and they later fled to Syria, to join the IS terror-group. Yameen’s PPM party described the report as ‘political’. Yameen has threatened to sue commission member Misbah Abbas for defamation after the latter linked him the crime, at a news conference, in which panel Fareesha Abdulla was present.

Nasheed, Solih in fray

In the rival, ruling MDP camp, the situation continues to be more nebulous than already with both President Ibrahim Solih and his one-time mentor and party chief Mohammed ‘Anni’ Nasheed, who is also the Parliament Speaker, contesting the party primaries for presidential candidacy, fixed for 28 January. Nasheed has since revived his on-again-off-again tirade that Solih indulged corrupt ministers.

Nasheed has also been flagging his early demand for a system-change to parliamentary democracy, variously arguing that would alone help the MDP retain power, and that they needed to have a national referendum on the issue before party primaries and presidential election. He has since gone as far as to say that “Solih was ruling against the wishes of the people”. Against this, Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid, who was the UNGA president for a year recently, has said that “Solih needs to be re-elected to ensure political stability” that the nation very badly needs for post-Covid economic recovery.

Reflecting the deep-seated adversity in what is still the nation’s largest party, Nasheed, who used to be the most popular leader, charged the Solih-centric team with removing 39,000 members eligible to vote in the primaries. The Solih camp, whose candidate Fayyaz Ismail (Economic Development Minister), won the party chairmanship in charge of administration earlier this year, has rejected the charge. It has given a break-down of 17,000 other-party members and 24,000 apolitical persons whose names had found their way into the MDP registry when a Nasheed camp member was chairman.

The revised MDP figures come close to the official those announced by the Election Commission earlier this year. Incidentally, the PPM, for its part, has since expressed unhappiness over the alleged delay in the EC reinstating such members back to its rolls. The party has already petitioned the EC for criminal action against the perpetrators.

Overall, the presidential poll scene promises a multi-cornered contest. Apart from the MDP and the PPM, the infant Maldives National Party’s (MNP) congress has unanimously named founder, Col Mohamed Nazim (retd), Yameen’s estranged defence minister, as its presidential candidate. The constitutionally-mandated Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) summoning MNP vice-president and former foreign minister, Dunya Maumoon, daughter of ex-President Gayoom, on the very eve of the party congress has the potential to close the door for a future coalition, especially as existing alliance partners of the MDP trust President Solih more.

An existing ally, the Jumhooree Party (JP) congress is due in mid-January, to decide on the continuing coalition with for the presidential poll. Party founder Gasim Ibrahim, is the likely candidate if the decision is for the JP to contest. Apart from the visible infighting a break in the coalition too has the potential to weaken the MDP in the presidential polls.

India-bashing still

At a pre-scheduled political rally two days ahead of the Sunday verdict, Yameen revived India-bashing, named Prime Minister Narendra Modi, possibly for the first time in his year-long ‘India Out/India Military Out’ campaign, claiming that the government could imprison him to appease India but he would not sell out to India. “Some people are profiting … The whole country has been sold for loans taken from India,” he said.

A member of Yameen’s PPM, Abbas Adil Riza, in a tweet, has since called for an arson attack on Indian High Commission in Male. The police have since arrested Riza, with the nation’s police chief, Commissioner Mohamed Hameed described his tweet as an ‘act of terrorism’. Security for the Indian High Commission has also been heightened, since.

Earlier, defence minister Mariya Didi described Riza’s sweet as an ‘act of terror’, and said that it was ‘unacceptable’.  The tweet also met with prompt and strong condemnation from the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s MRM and the Third-Way Democrats, among others. Yameen’s views and those of his party are not known.

Though this one involves an activist of a political party, at the instance of the foreign ministry, the police, in July 2021, had arrested a man for threatening to bomb the Indian High Commission. The High Commission had earlier written to the government over newspaper articles and posts which ‘attacked the dignity’ of its diplomatic staff.

The writer is a Chennai-based policy analyst and political commentator. Views are personal.

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