Nearly 1,000 demonstrators turned up at this small Muslim nation’s Republican Square after Friday prayers demanding that President Mohamed Nasheed resign and saying reforms proposed by International Monetary Fund has sent commodity prices sky high.
Police quickly pushed the protesters out of the square, where authorities had banned entry saying it is a high security area. People were handcuffed and taken away in police vehicles. It was not immediately clear how many people were arrested.
The protesters moved briefly to another location and vowed to regroup later Friday evening for a seventh night of demonstrations.
President Mohamed Nasheed said he can’t be unseated through protests and has challenged the opposition to defeat him in an election.
Addressing a support rally in Male, he assuring Maldivians the hardships are only temporary but his International Monetary Fund-backed reforms are beneficial in the long term.
Protesters have taken to the streets for six consecutive nights over soaring prices, alleged mismanagement by the government.
They are angry over the government’s decision to allow the local currency rufiyaa to float against the US dollar as part of the IMF proposals. As a result, they say, the rufiyaa has dropped in value resulting in high prices for goods, most of which are imported to the islands.
Nasheed was elected in the country’s first democratic election in 2008 after a 30-year rule by Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.
Foreign Minister Ahmed Naseem told reporters in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, on Friday that the opposition protests are harming the tourism-based economy by scaring away potential visitors.
“Today, there is a planned big demonstration, which may go quite nasty,” he said hours before the protests began.
“So, police have taken appropriate action to prevent any damage to public property, damage to people and to keep order in the country.” The government says the reforms are necessary to bridge the country’s budget deficit which stands at 16 percent of the $1.4 billion economy.
Maldives, an Indian Ocean archipelago of 1,200 islets, has a population of around 300,000.
