Maldivian paradise has its reverse side. On the back of the postcard, we could list all the challenges of the 21st century, concentrated in a small state of 330,000 inhabitants and 1,192 islands, including 200 inhabited: large gap between rich and poor, corruption, clash of civilizations, rise of radical Islamism, global warming, even piracy…
Unlike another paradise for western tourists, Seychelles, a virgin territory populated in the 18th century by French settlers, the Maldives have always been inhabited. First Buddhist, its inhabitants were converted to Islam, probably in the 12th century. The approximately 900,000 annual visitors who rent rooms at a minimum of 200 euros hardly know this. Directed directly from Malé airport, the capital, to their "hotel island", they only meet Maldivian with waiters, maids, or even those who sweep the beach in the early morning.
The deposed president of the Maldives, Mohammed Nasheed, welcomed the holding of early elections on the archipelago, without however canceling a rally of his supporters organized on Friday to call for the resignation of his successor. The presidential election was to take place in October 2013.
But the election date was brought forward and was accepted by the new head of state, Mohammed Waheed, a week after he took power in the Maldives, whose former president claimed to have been ousted by a coup d 'State. This archipelago is in the grip of a political crisis interspersed with violence, after the resignation on February 7 of Mohammed Nasheed, in the aftermath, of a mutiny by the police and weeks of demonstrations by opponents.
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