Former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed, who is living in exile in the UK has said that he would return to Sri Lanka soon, and hoped to return to Maldives in the trip.
Nasheed, who is now a political refugee in the UK traveled to neighboring Sri Lanka two weeks back to attend some meetings, and set out back for UK on Monday.
Speaking in an interview with Indian Express before leaving Sri Lanka, Nasheed said that he would be returning back to Sri Lanka within the next few months, and would then travel back to Maldives.
“There are a number of things that have to happen and we are working on them,” said Nasheed in the interview with Indian Express.
Nasheed said that current Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom was on shaky ground, and that he believed there was enough factors playing in the oppositions favor to make a transitional arrangement before the Presidential Elections 2018.
“How exactly this will be triggered, the modalities of how exactly we will migrate to a transitional government, are under discussion, but we will not want to depart from peaceful politics. We don’t have violent political coups in the Maldives,” said Nasheed in the interview with Indian Express, adding, “What we want to see is a democratic arrangement, a democratic government in the Maldives.”
Answering a question about Nasheed being in Sri Lanka during a Sri Lankan Cabinet press conference on August 29, Spokesperson for the Cabinet, Minister Rajitha Senaratne said Sri Lankan government was not concerned it would raise any conflicts between the two countries.
Senaratne said that Nasheed was in Lanka for efforts related to promoting democracy, and not to plan a coup.
He said that Nasheed had been in Lanka before for similar reason, and that he could not see why it would create any conflict now when it had not created any conflict before.
Nasheed, who was sentenced to prison for the wrongful arrest of the Chief Judge of Criminal Court during his tenure as president, gained political asylum in the UK after he was allowed to travel there by the Maldivian government for a spinal surgery.
Nasheed maintained that he had been prosecuted on trumped-up charges, refusing to return back to Maldives despite insistence by the government.