| |||||
| Decades: | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| See also: | |||||
The following lists events that happened during 2012 in the Maldives .
| |||||
| Decades: | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| See also: | |||||
The following lists events that happened during 2012 in the Maldives .
The history of the Maldives is intertwined with the history of the broader Indian subcontinent and the surrounding regions, comprising the areas of South Asia and Indian Ocean; and the modern nation consisting of 26 natural atolls, comprising 1194 islands. Historically, the Maldives had a strategic importance because of its location on the major marine routes of the Indian Ocean. The Maldives' nearest neighbours are the British Indian Ocean Territory, Sri Lanka and India. The United Kingdom, Sri Lanka and some Indian kingdoms have had cultural and economic ties with the Maldives for centuries. In addition to these countries, Maldivians also traded with Aceh and many other kingdoms in, what is today, Indonesia and Malaysia. The Maldives provided the main source of cowrie shells, then used as a currency throughout Asia and parts of the East African coast. Most probably Maldives were influenced by Kalingas of ancient India who were earliest sea traders to Sri Lanka and the Maldives from India and were responsible for the spread of Buddhism. Stashes of Chinese crockery found buried in various locations in the Maldives also show that there was direct or indirect trade contact between China and the Maldives. In 1411 and 1430, the Chinese admiral Zheng He 鄭和 visited the Maldives. The Chinese also became the first country to establish a diplomatic office in the Maldives, when the Chinese nationalist government based in Taipei opened an embassy in Malé in 1966. This office has since been replaced by the embassy of the People's Republic of China.
The politics of the Maldives, as per the reports, take place in the framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President is the Head of Government. Executive power is exercised by the government. The President heads the executive branch and appoints the Cabinet; like many presidential democracies, each member of the cabinet need to be approved by the Parliament. The President, along with their pick for vice president, is directly elected by the denizens to a five-year term by a secret ballot. Once in office, they could be re-elected to a second 5-year term, which is the limit allowed by the Constitution. The current President of the Maldives is Mohamed Muizzu, when his predecessor, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih lost the 2023 Maldivian presidential election. Nasheed reportedly resigned involuntarily to forestall an escalation of violence, and was placed in jail, before being forced into exile, from which he eventually returned.
Ahmed Shafeeq Ibrahim Moosa, also known as Sappé, is a Maldivian editor-in-chief and politician who served as the first Envoy for Science and Technology to be appointed by the first democratically elected president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed. He was appointed to his position on 11 March 2009 and resigned from the Maldivian government on 9 February 2012, soon after President Nasheed's government was allegedly overthrown by the incumbent President Mohammed Waheed Hassan two days earlier. Moosa is amongst those who campaigned for democracy and human rights which led to the end of the 30-year rule of Gayoom in November 2008. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of the news website Dhivehi Observer.
Black Friday, August 13, 2004, was the crackdown by the Maldivian National Security Service (NSS) — later Maldivian National Defence Force — on a peaceful protest in the capital city of Maldives, Malé. This unplanned and unorganized demonstration was the largest such protest in the country's history. Beginning on the evening of August 12, 2004, the demonstration grew and continued until it was forcefully ended on the afternoon of August 13, 2004. Protesters initially demanding the freeing of the pro-reformists arrested on the afternoon of August 12, 2004. As the protest continued to grow, people demanded the resignation of president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who had been in power since 1978. What started as a peaceful demonstration ended after 22 hours, as the country's darkest day in recent history. Several people were severely injured as NSS personnel used riot batons and teargas on unarmed civilians.
Mohamed Nasheed GCSK, commonly known as Anni, is a Maldivian politician and activist who served as president of the Maldives from 2008 until his resignation in 2012. A founding member of the Maldivian Democratic Party, he subsequently served as the 19th speaker of the People's Majlis from May 2019 until his resignation in November 2023. He is the first democratically elected president of the Maldives and the only president to resign from office. He is currently a member of The Democrats.
Dr. Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik is a Maldivian politician who served as president of the Maldives from 7 February 2012 to 17 November 2013, having succeeded to the office following the resignation of President Mohamed Nasheed, under whom he served as vice president. He had previously worked as a news anchor, a United Nations official with UNICEF, UNDP and UNESCO, and a member of the Maldivian Parliament.
New Maldives began as a group of young ministers who supported the dictatorship of President Gayoom and claimed to be working to usher in liberal democracy to the Maldives. Its most public proponent is Ahmed Shaheed, supported by Hassan Saeed and Mohamed Jameel Ahmed, who were serving as Foreign Minister, Attorney-General and Justice Minister, respectively. The New Maldives was launched in December 2005 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and was initially used by the media as a pejorative term.
The vice president of the Republic of Maldives is the second-highest official in the executive branch of the government of the Maldives, after the president of the Maldives, and ranks first in the presidential line of succession. The vice president is directly elected together with the president to a five-year term of office.
Gaumee Itthihaad was a political party in the Maldives headed by Dr. Mohammed Waheed Hassan Manik, former President of Maldives, and the first Vice President of Maldives. The party was a generally pragmatic, and was part of the coalition including the former ruling party for the Republic of Maldives. Under the coalition agreement with the Maldivian Democratic Party, the GIP were awarded three seats in the cabinet; the Fisheries Ministry, the Education Ministry, and the Ministry for Economic Development and Trade, although these positions were revoked by the then-President in contravention of the coalition agreement.
Ilyas Hussain Ibrahim is a Maldivian politician. He was an official in the Ministry of Atolls Development from 1990 to 2004, then a member of the Special Majilis (parliament) representing A.DH Atoll from 2004 to 2008. Between 2008 and 2013 he was deputy minister or minister of state for Immigration and Emigration, Housing and Environment, and then Defense and National Security.
The Cabinet of the Maldives is the most senior level of the executive branch of the Government of the Maldives. It is made up of the President, the Vice President, Attorney General and the Ministers.
Presidential elections were held in the Maldives on 7, 9 and 16 November 2013. The first round was held on 7 September. As no candidate received a majority, a second round was planned to be held in 28 September between the candidates who received the most votes in the first round, former President Mohamed Nasheed and Abdulla Yameen, paternal half-brother of former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. Incumbent President Mohammed Waheed Hassan was eliminated in the first round after receiving less votes than three other candidates.
Al Amir Mohammed Waheed Deen is a Maldivian politician who served vice president of the Maldives from 25 April 2012 to 10 November 2013. He was appointed to the position by President Mohamed Waheed Hassan on 15 February 2012, following the disputed resignation of the previous president, Mohamed Nasheed. He is also the Chairman of Bandos Maldives.
The 2011–2013 Maldives political crisis began as a series of peaceful protests that broke out in the Maldives on 1 May 2011. They would continue, eventually escalating into the resignation of President Mohamed Nasheed in disputed circumstances in February 2012. Demonstrators were protesting what they considered the government's mismanagement of the economy and were calling for the ouster of President Nasheed. The main political opposition party in the country, the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party led by the former president of the country Maumoon Abdul Gayoom accused President Nasheed of "talking about democracy but not putting it into practice." The protests occurred during the Arab Spring.
Human rights in the Maldives, an archipelagic nation of 417,000 people off the coast of the Indian Subcontinent, is a contentious issue. In its 2011 Freedom in the World report, Freedom House declared the Maldives "Partly Free", claiming a reform process which had made headway in 2009 and 2010 had stalled. The United States Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor claims in their 2012 report on human rights practices in the country that the most significant problems are corruption, lack of religious freedom, and abuse and unequal treatment of women.
Husnu Al Suood born Meedhoo is a Justice of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Maldives since 8 December 2019. He was the Attorney General of the Maldives from June 2009 to August 2010. He served as the Chief Judge of the Civil Court and as a member of the Judicial Service Commission of Maldives. He also served as a member of the National Human Rights Commission of the Maldives from 2003 to 2005. As a member of the Special Majlis Suood participated in drafting the current constitution of the Republic of Maldives.
Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom is a Maldivian politician who served as president of the Maldives from 2013 to 2018.
Diplomatic relations between the People's Republic of China and the Maldives were established in 1972. China has an embassy in Malé which opened in November 2011, and the Maldives has an embassy in Beijing which opened in 2009. Approximately 70 percent of the Maldives' total debt is attributed to Chinese projects, with an annual payment of $92 million to China, constituting around 10 percent of the country's entire budget. China has become pervasive in the Maldives, exerting influence over infrastructure, trade, and energy sectors, raising concerns of a new form of Chinese entrapment.
The following lists events that happened during 2013 in the Maldives.
Sharif Mohamed is a Maldivian politician and entrepreneur who served as a Media Coordinator at The President's Office of the Maldives in 2015. Prior to his appointment on 7 July 2015, he served in executive committees of non-governmental organizations and as a youth wing council member of the Jumhooree Party.
