What will happen tomorrow?

It appears that we are heading to another political showdown tomorrow as the opposition party claims it will do all it can to block Dr. Waheed from giving his presidential address. The military and police have also announced that they will block 15 sensitive areas from Male’ in time for the address. These are hardly news that the world expects from the this peaceful holiday maker’s country. But who is calling the shots and why? Is there logic behind the ‘decisions’?

If there are reasons they clearly are obscure and it might involve some deep thinking to find it out. So let’s give it a try.

[Disclaimer: the following sequences of events is for imagination only]

09:30 local time. Resortworkers team manages to secretly insert a camera to parliament chambers to record the happenings inside. 🙂
10:00 Dr Waheed arrives in parliament in the official black car with first lady and hundreds of armed guards.

10:05 The parliament speaker announces the day’s agenda and introduces the president.
10:20 Dr. Waheed starts “Bismillah…(In the name of Allah)…” [and then all hell broke loose… parliamentarians start making noise, throws furniture at each other, yells and shouts obscenities…]
10:47 Dr. Waheed tries to continue… but ultimately too tired and frustrated, he steps down from the podium and takes a seat near the speaker of the parliament.
10:53 The parliament speaker names a few members of MDP to be evicted from the parliament chambers… [some parliamentarians are now indistinguishable from street hooligans… some even shirtless and most engaged in real physical violence against opponents!]
11:03 In other places around Male’ a few arson attacks were started by unknown assailants at the same time as the presidential address was going on and fire lorries were seen rushing to scenes of carnage!
11:07 Resortworkers team manages to hack in to the servers of local media stations (Dhi TV, Raaje TV, TVM, Haveeru, Aafathis… [with Anonymous’ help] of course!) and quickly discovers what is already known: That other than Raaje TV and Minivan News, all other media outlets are trying to downplay the situation while the above two media outlets are deliberately misleading the public by exaggerating the events unfolding in Male’.
11:37 The southern most atolls Addu, Foa Mulah and Huvadhoo declares independence from Maldives and names Dr. Didi (MDP chairperson) as the president. Kulhudhuffushi island council is said to be in talks with Indian high commission to join the Indian federation!
11:42 Dr. Waheed announces abolition of parliament to the cheers of Srilankan high commissioner and the Chinese envoy. [dunno why! 😦 ]
12:03 BBC announces that US 7^th fleet is headed towards Maldives (from wherever it was based!) with a fearsome armada of ships, destroyers, submarines and at-least two aircraft carriers! [getting scary now!]
12:59 CNN reporting that a platoon of crack-commandos descended on the parliament house in broad daylight, overpowered the security forces and snatched Dr. Waheed and first lady and escaped via a radar-evading helicopter to…. somewhere…
Resortworkers team signs off after a momentous day in history!

MDP big demo underway…

MDP’s long planned big demo is underway in Male’ with thousands of MDP supporters. The demand for now is for incumbent president Dr. Waheed to announce a date for a fresh referendum or else! 🙂

Actually our sources in the demo reports that the temperature is quite cool yet and there is possibility that further demands may be spawned as the demo goes on. The only worry for now is that the police forces might intervene to stop the demo at midnight which might lead to confrontations. However, its equally likely that the police will play it safe this time because it would be in the interest of incumbent government now.

streaming of demo is available @ www.newdhivehiobserver.com

So, what do you think? Could the recent power transfer from Anni to Dr. Waheed be called a coup?

President Anni resigns, what next?

Lets first congratulate Dr. Waheed, the new president of Maldives. Dr. Waheed is a quiet, soft spoken, extremely polite figure who has worked in UN diplomatic missions for quite some time. Dr. Waheed is generally looked upon to be impartial and fair and he retained the trust of both MDP and opposition parties even in the height of political tensions these last few days. We wish the new president well and hope he will be able to bring the country to working order in a near future.

Former President Anni and former president Maumoon still have sizable support of the people and what is not known yet is weather there will be a race between the two in the near future. For Maumoon its very much anticipated that he will not enter again to politics but for Anni there is every reason to anticipate a fighting political campaign ahead for him. Its interesting to note that the major 3 political parties in the country had experienced splits in the last 3 years and only MDP is left because it was the ruling party for the last few years. With Anni out of power it is likely that, the bindings that kept the party from splitting will cease and break out. If MDP were to split it would be a split in two, with the ‘countryside’ faction headed by DR. Didi who would be the majority and a Male’ faction lead by aristocrats from Male’. This has been quite anticipated for some time the media and there are already signs that the MDP’s self examining process will make it real. During the last three years, Anni seemed to have ears only for the Male’ faction on important policy matters which was probably the undoing of the party. Unpopular issues like licensing liquor sale in inhabited islands were advanced by the MDP’s Male’ faction with probable self interest in the issues. On a personal level, if the cases of bottles of liquor recovered from president’s residence were proved to have been for his Excellency’s consumption, there will be a very slim chance for him to get elected again.

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