Comment: Plan B

On 19 September 2003 Evan Naseem, an inmate in Maafushi jail was brutally beaten and murdered by police, sparking off pro-democracy protests which ultimately led to the end of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s authoritarian regime.

Now, a decade later, the Supreme Court is expected to reach a verdict on whether or not to annul the votes cast in the presidential election held on September 7, the second democratic election ever to be held in the Maldives. A Supreme Court ruling that orders a revote would amount to a court order for an authoritarian reversal – there would be no second round on September 28, or on any other day in the near future.

Tragic as it is, this seems to be the most likely outcome of the hearings, for this road to the Supreme Court is where this election was always going to lead – it was planned this way. No matter what the election results were — if they put Mohamed Nasheed in the lead, the ultimate decision of who wins would be made by the judiciary, the most corrupt and dysfunctional of the three separated powers.