THE president of the Maldives, Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom, has fallen out with all manner of people in his three years in office: two successive vice-presidents, both turfed out of office; his first defence minister (ditto); the failed assassins who bombed his yacht last year (he blamed one of the deposed veeps); Mohamed Nasheed, his predecessor but one, who says the president is turning the Maldives into a dictatorship; and the Commonwealth, a club of former British colonies, which has questioned his democratic credentials. But his newest adversary is by far the most surprising: Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, his half-brother and another former president, who was the country’s strongman from 1978 to 2008.
The dispute between Mr Yameen, as the current president is called, and Mr Gayoom, the former one, centres on the Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM), which Mr Gayoom founded in 2011 (for most of his presidency, political parties were banned). The party nominated Mr Yameen as its presidential candidate in 2013, but Mr Gayoom remained head of the party. The two seemed to get on well enough until June, when Mr Gayoom opposed a bill to allow the...Continue reading
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