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End Game for the Baathists - Time to Fix the Votes

DO editorial - 15 December 2004
Maldives President Maumoon Gayyoom lost the presidential referendum on 17 October 2003. However, the dictator added his own votes to the tally room during a blackout of the capital early morning on Saturday 18 October 2003. MaldivesCulture website carried a detailed report of events that night:

At 12.30 am on Saturday 18 October, TV Maldives announced that Ibrahim Rashad, the commissioner of elections, would not give a result that night because of voting delays in the far northern Haa Alifu and Haa Dhaalu atolls. There was no explanation for the delays. Voting in the populous Male' and Addu voting precincts had been completed on time. TV Maldives said 127 ballot boxes had been received by the commissioner, 47 boxes were in the counting area and 25 boxes were on the checking tables.

Less than 30 minutes after this announcement, just before 1 am, a power blackout paralyzed Male'. A faint rising moon was still low in the eastern sky, leaving the capital in almost total darkness. During the blackout, sources allege, NSS 'riot police' surrounded the official government function house, Dharubaaruge where the votes were being counted, and plainclothes National Security Service officers carried two heavy suitcases into the building. Election officials had left Dharubaaruge just before the NSS arrived.

Complaints about the blackout later prompted the Electricity Board to issue a statement claiming the power failure was an accident and no foul play was involved.

Power returned to the capital at 2 am, and at 8 am TV Maldives began a 'live' coverage of the vote counting with pre-recorded clips of popular singer Ali Rameez. Forty-five minutes later, TV Maldives began announcing results it claimed were made public by the elections commissioner over 6 hours before, at 2 am. This was in contradiction of the commissioner's previous statement that no results would be given that night. Also the preparation of results announced at 2 am, immediately after the blackout, means they must have been prepared by the NSS officials who were occupying Dharubaaruge at that time.
MaldivesCulture 19 October 2003

To gauge public support for his Baathists and to flush opponents out into the open, Gayyoom allowed the May 2004 Special constitutional majlis elections to proceed with only limited vote fixing. Three months earlier, at 3 am on 13 February, the dictator had attacked reformist families in Male' with his National Security Service, but the Maldivian Democratic Party candidates for the Special majlis still managed to win 55% of the popular vote, according to MDP Newsletter:13.

Gayyoom effectively stopped the Special majlis proceedings and scattered the reformist members with NSS assaults and bogus legal charges. The Special majlis no longer functions as a meaningful body, and the majlis system itself is dysfunctional in Maldives. The country is a military dictatorship under Commander-in-Chief Maumoon Gayyoom who rules by presidential decree and direct orders to the National Security Service. The court appearances of reformists has no legal or administrative logic; they are carried out according to direct orders from the NSS and are not subject to review.

The NSS has no consitutional or legal basis for its power, and Gayyoom's decrees need a state of emergency for validity. Senior NSS commanders Adam Zahir and Mohamed Zahir, and other Male' powerbrokers, are paid for their alliegance to Gayyoom. An illegal junta based on mass bribery and intimidation, rules the country while Gayyoom woos aid money and pretends to be a democratically elected president.

Overseas observers are coming to Maldives for the People's Majlis elections on 31 December. In recent elections, SAARC has provided a motley crew of blind dignitaries to verify voting procedures. During the October 2003 presidential referendum, these observers failed to notice that Gayyoom overturned the results, brought in suitcases of bogus votes and illegally installed himself as president. Are the Commonwealth team going to adjourn to their New Year's Eve parties while Gayyoom fiddles the paper again?