PPM decides to protest against Zaki

Progressive Party of the Maldives has decided to go on protest on the 26th of this month, to express outrage at the statements of Ibrahim Hussain Zaki to the Indian media which have been described as a threat to national security of the Maldives.

Speaking to the press today at PPM Office, Party Council Member Mohamed Waheed Ibrahim said that PPM would not give anyone the chance to do or say anything that would be detrimental to national security. He said that Zaki’s statements depicted India as a threat to Maldives, while India had always been, and still remains as one of the closest friends of the Maldives. He also said that Zaki’s statements would only call for trouble and problems between the two nations.

“We will protest against the statements of Zaki. May be Zaki things that India is waiting for a chance to conquer Maldives. But the Indian government would never do such a thing, and Zaki is not going to get anything by playing the game he is playing now”, said Waheed.

Ibrahim Hussain Zaki served in the cabinet of former President Maumoon Abdul Qayyoom for a long time, then defaulted and then served Maumoon’s arch-rival, former President Mahomet Nasheed as Special Advisor. A man who has not being recognized as a particularly strong figure in internal politics has caught headlines in the last couple of days, after he made statements to the Indian media, saying that if his party, the Maldivian Democratic Party, headed by Mahomet Nasheed, was in power, they would call in the Indian military to protect GMR, operator of Ibrahim Nasir International Airport in the Maldives.

GMR is an Indian multinational company which was awarded a lease on the Airport for 25 years during the incomplete presidential term of Nasheed. It has been alleged that Nasheed’s government perpetrated acts of corruption in handing over the main international airport in the Maldives to GMR. While there have been continuous demonstrations and activities in the Maldives demanding the current government to cancel the lease and take back the Airport from GMR, Zaki, in his statements to Indian media, described these activities as “extremist Islamic activity”.