Kutti and the coup: what role MP Mohamed Nasheed?
by Aishath Velezinee
For 22 consecutive nights from mid-January 2012 onwards unrest rocked the streets of Male’. This was the planning period of the coup that ultimately brought down the first democratically elected government of the Maldives on 7 February 2012. Political opponents of then President Mohamed Nasheed led the unrest, inciting public anger against him purportedly for violating the constitution.
One of the loudest voices making the claim that President Nasheed had veered wildly off the ‘Constitutional chart’ was that of Independent MP for Kulhudhuffishi Area Mohamed (Kutti) Nasheed. The point he kept reiterating was that in ‘disappearing’ Judge Abdulla Mohamed (commonly referred to as ‘Judge Ablo’), President Nasheed had abused the Constitution.
Given Kutti’s vociferous condemnation of President Nasheed’s said constitutional violation, it seems prudent to take a critical look at Kutti’s own relationship with the constitution as well as his role in the coup, if any.