Opposition says CONI report incomplete, seeks probe into Nasheed's fall

The Progressive Congress Coalition, which includes the opposition PPM-PNC, said on Tuesday that the report of the Commission on National Inquiry (CONI), set up to probe the fall of former president Mohamed Nasheed's government in 2012, was incomplete and that the manner in which the government fell should be re-examined.

February 7, 2012, marking the date 11 years after Nasheed was removed from office, the issue was raised by Maduvvari MP Adam Shareef during a debate in parliament.

Adam Shareef, who is also the Vice President of PNC, said that the way it was mentioned in the CONI report and the way MDP speaks about it has become completely different. Calling it a matter of concern, he called for a re-examination of the manner in which the regime fell.

"Today, within MDP, that is, if president Nasheed says that he left unable to manage it properly, then I am advocating that the CONI report is incomplete," he said, referring to some of the comments made during the campaign of President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, who won against Nasheed in the primary, about the fall of the regime.

"I don't think its too late to look into the matter. To find out whether the CONI report was a complete report, if what happened on February 6 was a rebellion and how the regime really changed, I think the state agencies needs to investigate."

Adam Shareef, who also served as defence minister in Yameen's government, said the MNDF needs to study the issue carefully.

"The reason is that if there are so many things [on February 7] that threaten national security in the Maldives and the transition of power is not properly studied, that culture will never change," he said while Villufushi MP Hassan  Afeef sat in the chair in place of Speaker Mohamed Nasheed.

The commission set up by president Mohamed Waheed's government at the time to investigate the fall of the government concluded that it was not a coup. Noting this, Adam Shareef said that contrary to CONI’s decision, for the last 11 years, MDP had said and believed that "it was a rebellion".

"However, in the last MDP internal primaries, those within the same MDP said that the presidency had been resigned because Nasheed was left unable to rule," he said.

'One should question whether it was a coup from the party’

Pointing out that the Maldives has a history of coups, Adam Shareef said that the leader of the opposition coalition, former President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom, had also experienced several times, the attempts made to change his government. He pointed out that the rebellors had tried to topple the government from within his own party as well.

Adam Shareef then questioned whether a section of MDP had conspired to change Nasheed's regime. That also needs to be looked into, he said.

"What I am asking is whether the change in president Nasheed's regime was carried out by including a section of MDP at that time, or whether it was actually not a coup as stated in the CONI report. This is something that needs to be questioned," he said in a tone that was deeply sympathetic to Nasheed.

"Isn't it possible for the coup to have been planned within MDP against President Nashee or did it involve the various challenges he faced within MDP? The people of the Maldives should know what really happened when some people who tried to change the government at that time, if they were in power today, if president Nasheed was in power today, the idea of isolating president Nasheed so much from the MDP, and finally, to the point where a particular ideology had to be born."

It will never go away from the hearts of the people, Shareef said. Many had to go to jail. He also pointed out that on February 8, the next day, there had been a series of terror attacks.

Nasheed, who had to face defeat in the MDP primaries, is no longer behind President Solih. Instead, he has been filling up forms to get members to form a separate faction within the party called 'Fikuregge Dhirun' meaning the birth of an ideology.