Bakuree and I sat in a café on the waterfront, less than thirty feet from the ocean. Insistent waves raced in from the east, depositing surfers just before the coral reef and water just before people's front doors. This would have been a unique spot in most places – but not in Male. One of around 1200 islands, Male is the capital of the Maldives, 99 percent of whose territory is comprised of water. Nearly one-third of the nation's 330,000 people squeeze into Male's two square miles, making it the fourth most densely populated island on earth. The five km road ringing this unique capital is home to countless establishments such as this one, where we met to discuss what some have called a 'unique coup'.
On 7 February 2012, the first democratically elected president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, resigned after a night of confusion in Male. The following day, Nasheed declared that his hand had been illegally forced. Confusion turned to heated confrontations on the streets of the capital, and radiated out to the other 191 inhabited islands. These events thrust Nasheed's Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) back into the opposition – a position from which it had spent the better part of a decade agitating for democracy before landmark multi-party elections in 2008.
I was prompted to contact Bakuree by a source close to the former president, who was in the United States the same day receiving an award for achievements gained through non-violent action. Bakuree is part of the MDP's eleven-member organising committee, and served as the party's public relations and organisational secretary for the Male area during its struggles for democratic reforms in the country between 2005 and 2010. Bakuree, whose real name is Imran Zahir, met me to talk about the methods of non-violence espoused by the MDP.
The café where we met lies only a short distance from where the MDP has been staging protests and rallies since the change of government. So close, in fact, that on both occasions when the police raided the MDP camps, the café has been adjacent to police cordons sealing the area from the public. The café is a well-known haunt of MDP supporters, and was reported to have been raided by rogue police officers the night before Nasheed's resignation.