“Everybody knows what happened on that day. If the commission says it’s not a coup, it’ll be big shock….Nobody is going to believe it,” Hamid Abdul Gafoor, spokesman of former President’s Maldivian Democratic Party spokesman is quoted as saying in the Maldivian capital.

What the report will say is any body’s guess. Jumping to conclusions even before one had occasion   to read the fine print is unfair to say the least. The government has therefore reasons to apprehend trouble and it has taken the right step of keeping the police on high alert. But President Mohamed Waheed has not placed any restrictions on protests. In fact his office has said that peaceful protests would be allowed.
 
Police have issued an advisory asking people to stay away from planned protests. As a precautionary measure, they started searching boats and people arriving in Male, which is on high alert. Superintendent of Police Abdulla Nawaz said eight people had been taken into custody. Security has also been strengthened in the capital.

Nasheed came to power in the first fully democratic elections held in 2008, defeating Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled the nation of several islands for 30 years. Gayoom era is described by his detractors as a dictatorship. There are no two opinions, however, that he ruled with an iron hand as Asia’s longest-serving leader.

On February 7, Nasheed was asked to resign at gunpoint, which he did and took the issue of coup to the people and to international fora. He was pacified when the five-member Commission of National Inquiry (CoNI) was set up to establish the facts behind his resignation and his claim that he was forced out in a military coup d’etat.

Media reports quoted Maldivian officials as saying that the CONI report was likely to announce that Nasheed was not ousted in a coup, and that he had stepped down at the height of protests against his administration culminating in a police mutiny.

Such a conclusion will not be to the liking of Nasheed camp. They were expecting a ‘positive’ report that supports their claim that Nasheed was forced out in a coup. President Mohamed Waheed, who was Nasheed’s deputy and succeeded him, has said he would abide by the CoNI findings when they are officially released.  

Ahmed Saeed, the nominee of Nasheed’s party on the commission, has spelt out the reasons for their objections over the draft prepared by Singaporean judge GP Selvam. “There are significant gaps in the draft and (it) does not include evidence and statements given to the commission by many people,” Saeed said in a statement released on Sunday. “I believe remaining silent on the unfolding of events would be an injustice to this nation and to the people of the Maldives.”

If Nasheed’s followers are expecting for an early elections, that wish is unlikely to materailise. Already President Waheed has rejected international calls for early elections. In his considered view, it is not practical to hold a fresh ballot before July next year.  Clearly, the island nation has to live with confrontation between pro and anti-government forces for close to one year. The unrest will affect tourism industry which is the mainstay of Maldives.

More than political instability, threat to Maldives comes from radical Islamic ideology being imported into the country by young Maldivians who are graduating from madrasas in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.  Though law enforcement capacity has been strengthened and community outreach to counter violent extremism has been expanded, the system has failed to deliver. Corruption and slow legal processes meant that there is no successful prosecution of persons charged with promoting violent extremism and terrorism in 2011. Two Maldivians, one in March and the other in October, were arrested in Sri Lanka on charges linked to terrorism.  But their cases have not made much progress.