Runnymede or Stampede: How to Avoid a Mob Over Magna Carta in the Maldives

Sultan in Procession, 1940s

Last Monday, President Nasheed invited me to join him for lunch at the UK House of Lords. To my left sat Baroness D’Souza, Convenor of the Crossbench in the UK parliament; to her left sat President Nasheed and on his left was our host, Lord Bilimoria. To my right was Baron Desai, with whom I chit chatted about the respective merits of Marx and Chicago School and their relevance to the Maldives and how the Maldives could benefit from his Lordship’s expertise as an Economics Professor at LSE. To his right was Minister Aslam and to his right High Commissioner Farah.

Soon enough my attention was drawn to the conversation on politics that was going on to my left between the Baroness and the President. At an appropriate pause in their conversation, I decided I would join the political discussion, especially when I learned that the Baroness was soon going to meet Her Majesty the Head of the Commonwealth and discuss themes for the upcoming Commonwealth Heads Meeting in Trinidad.

“History has a way of repeating itself, and if that is the case, in 2014, the people of the Maldives will again take to the streets,” I said half-jokingly, and President Nasheed, who actually conceals how much of an intellectual and scholar that he really is, gave a knowing smile.

The Baroness, with a little shock, as I might have expected, asked me why I said that. “We have a strong tradition of that, and an observable regularity in the timing of these events, the people took to the streets in 1933, in 1953, in 1974, in 1993, in 2004 and therefore quite possibly in 2014,” I continued. And I briefly explained to her what these dates were, careful not to upset anyone at the table.
But after doing that, I also told her that a mob in 2014 was not a foregone conclusion.

“There are very clear ways to avoid that—what I am saying is that, if democratic consolidation does not make good progress, by 2014, the people will again express their frustration with the way they are being governed, especially if their aspirations for a proper democracy remain unfulfilled,” I quickly added.

“I hope that by democracy you don’t mean electoral democracy,” the Baroness said.

“That’s exactly the point,” I concurred. “What we have in the Maldives since autumn is a democratically elected government, but we are still a long way from liberal democracy. I expect the people to give us 5 years to consolidate democracy, but they are unlikely to usher in 2015 without enjoying the fruits of liberal democracy,” I explained.

2015 will be a watershed year. The Millennium Development Goals are to be met by that date. We may or may not measure up to all the targets.

Magna Carta 1215


But, more than the MDGs, 2015 is also a key year for reformists in the Maldives, particularly for MDP and all those who, like me, support the MDP. Why? 2015 marks the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta. It was in June 1215, at a place called Runnymede that King John signed the Magna Carta.

The Maldives be represented at Runnymede in June 2015 – and none more appropriate than President Nasheed to be there. But we would not like to go to Runnymede merely as an electoral democracy—we will want to be a proper democracy, with working institutions and real people power. And I wouldn’t want to miss out on that event, if I am alive and kicking, and neither will MDP.

I told our hosts about the time President Nasheed and I spent in the UK, him at Liverpool and me at Aberystwyth (and I didn't have to explain to her why I went to read Strategic Studies at Coleg Prifysgol Cymru!), and how we identified with the British traditions of democracy, although local circumstances had necessitated, in my judgment, ushering in a US-style presidential system in the Maldives.

View of Old College, Aberystwyth

I then went along to explain to the Baroness about the challenges that still remain in terms of consolidating democracy in the Maldives. President Nasheed, who had made a very good impression on the Baroness with his keynote address at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association’s Conference on Climate Change at Portcullis House in the morning, agreed.

I cited Professor Larry Diamond at the Stanford University, and his concept of a predatory society as opposed to a liberal democracy. I stressed the need to increase horizontal accountability mechanisms, such as the judiciary, the anti-corruption commission, parliamentary oversight, the rule of law and the right to information.

I also highlighted the need to strengthen vertical accountability mechanisms such as issue-based NGOs, a vibrant and independent media, and elections that were free of intimidation and corruption.

I emphasised the need for transitional justice, and lamented the fact that yesterday’s corruption was yielding tremendous political gains today—and how therefore corrupt gains made yesterday were subverting democracy-building in the Maldives today.

Professor Larry Diamond



Whenever I meet diplomats and other stakeholders, I often repeat to them lessons from our history. The point of it all is to impress upon them the need to assist the government to consolidate democracy and strengthen constitutional rule.

The history of the Maldives is replete with instances of the people deposing governments they didn’t like and installing governments of their choice. In that sense, people power has always been part of the political life in the Maldives.

Tradition has it that the Sultans ruled at the pleasure of the “Havaru”, loosely translated to mean the people of the wards of Male. The oral history of the Maldives, as told by Buraaru, frequently refers to the summoning of the Havaru to depose and install Sultans.

The generally lengthy reigns witnessed since the 19th century somehow had eroded this function of the havaru, but people power returned with the introduction of constitutional rule in 1932, as an extra-constitutional means to exercise people power, and always exposing the weakness of our governance systems.

Thus, in 1933, at the instigation of the Sultan, the people took to the streets and tore up the Constitution, and dispatched the authors of the Constitution to the British Governor’s mansion in Colombo. (The Westminster House talks of 2006, which President Nasheed, then under house arrest, and I, as Foreign Minister had set up, took place with one of the grandsons of one of those dispatched to Colombo in 1933!)
Twenty-years after that crisis, on 31 August 1953, the people again took to the streets and mobbed and killed the first president of the Maldives.

The people were back at it, albeit in unsuccessfully, on 13 June 1974, to depose President Nasir, who walked away four years later.

In 1993, a similar event nearly took place, but the Bimbi Force was pre-empted by the intervention of foreign soldiers brought in by the government to carry out a military exercise. Many will recall that as MPs were voting on a candidate for the presidency, there was a climate of fear induced by the treatment meted out to the potential challenger, Ilyas Ibrahim, and by the echo of gunfire in parts of Male.

But the people came back with a vengeance in 2003. I remember telling a nervous government in July 2004 that protests to depose the government will take place between 21 and 31 August – because Gayoom was scheduled to be in China and because the period coincided with the arrest and subsequent mobbing of Amin Didi.

As it turned out, the events took place slightly earlier, on 12-13 August.

Of course, the most successful display of people power happened in 2004, setting in train events that culminated in the installation of a new government in 2008.

Of course, there are some who think that the current drive for democracy has already failed—those who expected the country to go from darkness to light in one day. But I reckon that most people understand that democracy-building is a process and not an event, and will have the patience to wait till 2014.

Now, the new target date for an irrepressible display of people power is 2014- one year after the next elections, and one year ahead of the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta.

And it does not matter who wins the next elections: whoever who heads this country by 2015 must either be celebrating in Runnymede or be running away on a stampede! In short, it is democracy or bust!

Memorial to Magna Carta at Runnymede, Berkshire


And so what should be the message to Her Majesty?

My instant response was to stress the need to give some real teeth to the CMAG—the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, which now acts only after a government is toppled in a coup. I told the Baroness about the frustration since 2004 of the Maldives pro-democracy movement over the CMAG and its inability to pressure the government of Maldives to expedite reform.

“Today, 2 out of 3 countries in the world have democratically elected governments, and the ratio is higher in the Commonwealth; the Harare Declaration must be enforced, the Millbrook Action Programme must be implemented, the CMAG must be given a wider mandate to promote democracy and censure illiberal democracies: you will be surprised by how much dictators loved to be loved and therefore how much they hate to be hated, and the CMAG must be empowered to condemn dictators and embrace democrats,” I said to her.

“Democracy today is a universal value, and the Commonwealth must not be coy about promoting democracy,” I said with all the seriousness that I could muster.

“The CMAG must respond not just to breaches of the constitution but must help to strengthen constitutionalism in countries, like the Maldives, where the government and the people alike aspire to do so,” I added.

Ahmed Shaheed for OSA