This week saw the culmination of the Maldives’s first democratic elections. In a historic victory, Mohamed ‘Anni’ Nasheed, a former political prisoner and Amnesty ‘prisoner of conscience’, ousted dictator Maumun Abdul Gayoom in the presidential run-off.
Nasheed inherits a complex set of problems. Gayoom, who ruled for 30 years, has revolutionised the tiny nation’s economy based on luxury tourism. The last 20 years have seen a steady rise of 7 per cent per annum in gross domestic product. According to the Asian Development Bank, this makes the Maldives the richest nation in South Asia.
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