Origins
New Maldives developed out of the close relationship between Hassan Saeed, who became the Attorney-General in November 2003, and Ahmed Shaheed when the latter was appointed as Chief Government Spokesman in May 2004. Both Saeed and Shaheed are alumni of the University of Queensland where they obtained their PhDs. They used their positions as Chief Legal Adviser to the President and Director of Communications respectively to dismantle the autocratic regime of Gayoom.
It was widely believed that it was Saeed and Shaheed who engineered the dismissal of the bulk of the Old Guard from the Cabinet of President Gayoom in May 2005. Shaheed became the Foreign Minister in the new Cabinet line-up, replacing Fathulla Jameel, who had served 28 years as Foreign Minister.
Shaheed claims to have coined the term New Maldives in November 2005 as a vision of the political reforms that were being implemented by President Gayoom in his sixth term in office. The concept was unveiled to the public in December 2005 at a press conference hosted by the Maldives High Commission in Colombo. The ministers in the panel were Foreign Minister Shaheed, Attorney General Saeed, Justice Minister Mohamed Jameel Ahmed, and Information Minister Mohamed Nasheed. Media reports of the event labeled the participating ministers as New Maldives.
Read more about this topic: New Maldives
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)