Nasheed: Keeping close touch with India

NEW DELHI: Ousted Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed did not quite deny that India had a role in his climb down - from restoration of power to asking for elections. “We are asking for him (Waheed) to step down and hold elections,” Nasheed kept reiterating throughout the telephonic interview with Express on Friday morning.

The Indian High Commission, he claimed, “is in close touch with him” and that the Indian government has assured him that they “will look into the transition of power”. On his part, Nasheed seems to have promised that he will “hold” his “supporters under control against any further instability”.

“The high commissioner said that India was willing to go in and look into exactly how the power transition was formulated and developed,” he told Express.

Nasheed had been asking that the events leading to his resignation should be investigated by the international community. “What we would like India to do is to look into the matter and make their assessment,” he said.

But, as Nasheed indicated, efforts by India to pacify seemed to have borne fruit, with Thursday passing peacefully. Indian High Commissioner Dyaneshwar Mulay met both Mohamed Waheed Hassan, the incumbent president, and Nasheed, with the message that “stability should be the immediate priority”. Nasheed, who has visited New Delhi four times since becoming president in 2008, felt India was “coming around to his view that the matter (his removal) had to be inquired properly”. Nasheed had announced his resignation on Maldives state TV on Tuesday, after it became evident that security forces had joined the opposition. He had to hand over power to Vice-President Mohamed Waheed Hassan as per constitutional provisions. The latter has since promised that a national unity government would be set up.

A day after his resignation, Nasheed dramatically announced that he had resigned under coercion at gunpoint.