Looking at the developments in the Maldives, one gets the feeling that President (by accident as some prefer to call him) Waheed does not appear to be in control of the events, writes Dr. S Chandrasekharan for the Eurasia Review.
In a moment of frustration he is said to have remarked that “Everybody runs the State as they please”, and this has been widely reported in the press.
He is aware of the remarks of his own adviser Dr. Hassan Saeed who said that President Waheed is “politically the weakest person in the country” and yet Saeed is merrily carrying on and some suspect that he may even join hands with Waheed to contest the next presidential elections in 2013.
President Waheed’s own official spokesperson Abbas Adil Raza broke all diplomatic protocol and openly called the Indian High Commissioner as a “traitor and enemy of the Maldives and the Maldivian people” over the controversy surrounding the GMR agreement. Though he tried to distance himself away, it took a while for him to remove Raza from the post of official spokesperson, only to be given a ministerial post later.
Relations with India appear to be reaching rock bottom. Following the cancellation of the GMR agreement, the Indian Foreign Secretary summoned the Maldivian High Commissioner in Delhi and expressed India’s deep regret at that the unilateral move and had also warned that the decision will have a negative impact on bilateral relations.
