H.E President Mohamed Nasheed

 

 

Mohamed Nasheed is the first democratically elected President in the history of the Maldives.

 

He was elected president on 28 October 2008, defeating incumbent President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled the Maldives from 1978-2008.

 

Nasheed was born in Male’, Republic of Maldives, on 17 May 1967. He attended Majeediyya School, Male’ between 1971-1981.

 

In 1981, he attended the Overseas School, Colombo before moving to The Dauntsey’s School in England to complete his ‘A’ levels, between 1982-1984.

 

Nasheed remained in the UK for his higher education, graduating from Liverpool University in 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts in Maritime Studies.

 

Nasheed’s early political career was dominated by his non-violent struggle for democracy in the Maldives.

 

In 1990, Nasheed helped establish Sangu a political magazine that scrutinized the ruling political class. The government banned Sangu within a year of its first publication, however, and Nasheed was arrested and jailed for the first of many times.

 

In 1991, Amnesty International declared Nasheed a ‘prisoner of conscience’.

 

In 1999, Nasheed was elected MP for Male’ but was stripped of his seat soon afterwards and jailed once again. He spent 18 months in jail, including long periods in solitary confinement.

 

On 20 September 2003, the Maldives was rocked by political unrest when hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Male’ after hearing of the murder of prisoner Evan Naseem, who was tortured to death by Maafushi Jail guards.

 

Sensing an underlying current for change, Nasheed fled the Maldives and, on 10 November 2004, co-founded the country’s first opposition party, the Maldivian Democratic Party, in exile in Sri Lanka.

 

In 2004, Nasheed was granted refugee status by the British government and granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK.

 

After spending 18 months in self-imposed exile, Nasheed returned to the Maldives on 30 April 2005 to establish the MDP in the Maldives, defying a government edict banning political parties.

 

The government overturned its ban on political parties on 2 June 2005. Nasheed was elected Chairperson of the MDP on 20 December 2005.

 

Between 2005-2008, Nasheed initiated a campaign of non-violent civil disobedience in the Maldives, to pressure the government to speed up the implementation of democratic reforms. He was arrested in August 2005 during a non-violent protest and charged for ‘terrorism’ but the government later dropped the charges against him.

 

Nasheed won the MDP primaries to become the MDP’s Presidential Candidate in April 2008.

 

Arrested, imprisoned and tortured in the Maldives on numerous occasions for his political activities, Nasheed is widely credited for playing an instrumental part in bringing freedom and democracy to the Maldives.

 

Vice President, Dr Mohamed Whaheed Hassan Manik

 

 

Dr. Mohamed Waheed was elected Vice President of Maldives on 28 October 2008. He is the first elected Vice President of the Maldives. Dr. Waheed is Leader of the Gaumee Itthihaad party which formed alliance with the Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) in September. Dr. Waheed’s political career began in 1998 when he ran the first Western-style election campaign and won the parliamentary seat for the largest constituency in the country.

 

Dr. Waheed is an experienced international civil servant who has worked in headquarters, regional and country offices of the United Nations. Until July 2008, he was UNICEF Country Representative in Turkmenistan. He served UNICEF as its Representative and head of mission in several countries. These include Acting Regional Director, UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia, Interim Representative of Afghanistan, Yemen and Montenegro, and Acting Representative in FYR Macedonia.

 

Dr. Waheed joined UNICEF in 1992 as Chief of Education for UNICEF in Tanzania. In 2002, he was appointed Special Representative in Afghanistan where he advised the Government of President Hamid Karzai and assisted in the coordination and rehabilitation of the education sector on behalf of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Afghanistan.

 

In 2005, Dr. Waheed was appointed Associate Director of UN Development Group Office in New York where he was responsible for simplification and harmonization of the United Nations operational activities. In this capacity he served as Secretary of the UNDG Management Group, exercised oversight responsibilities for the setting up of the first UN Joint Office pilot and led the headquarters support to the UN Resident Coordinator system for Europe and the Middle East.

 

Prior to jointing UNICEF, Dr. Waheed was a Member of Parliament for Male’ and served as Secretary of Education. While in government he served in the Office of the President and as member of Atolls Development Advisory Board, the Maldives Youth Council and the Council for Dhivehi Language and Literature. He had also worked as lecturer at Michigan State University and as a Programme Manager of HSQ Technology Incorporated USA, an information technology firm in San Francisco. Between 1991 and 1992, he worked with UNDP and UNESCO in Swaziland, Lesotho, Mozambique, Bangladesh, Fiji, and Western Samoa.

 

Dr. Waheed received his PhD from Stanford University, USA, in 1987 specializing in the field of international development. He received MA in political science and MA in education from the same university. He completed his undergraduate studies at the American University of Beirut in 1976.

 

Dr. Waheed is married to Ilham Hussain and has three children. Their eldest daughter Widhadh (32) is an architect and owns an IT firm in California, second daughter Fidha (28) is a PhD student in East West psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and son Salim Waheed (22) is a final year student of political science at Stanford University.