(Britsih Conservative Party) Tories help Maldives president prepare for parliamentary elections

(Reports www.telegraph.co.uk/)
A delegation of senior Tories flew to the Maldives on Tuesday (06th Jan) to help prepare the island nation's new president for the country's first-ever multi-party democratic parliamentary elections next month.
Mohammed Nasheed, a one-time Amnesty International "prisoner of conscience", spectacularly beat his former jailer and Asia's longest-serving ruler, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, in the Maldives' first democratic election in October. But now his Maldivian Democratic Party faces its first test next month, with all the seats in the People's Majlis, or parliament, being contested. The Tories (British Conservative Party) played a key role in Mr Nasheed's defeat of Mr Gayoom, who had been in power for 30 years, and the new president has called on Richard Spring MP, vice-chairman of the Conservative party, to lend advice on how the MDP can capture a majority in the February elections.

Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) is closely aligned with the Conservative Party and Anni, who graduated from John Moore University, Liverpool, is known to be a good friend of the shadow foreign secretary, William Hague. His own long political journey to the presidency began at Dauntsey's, the public school in rural Wiltshire where he attended sixth form. There he met David Hardingham, who later formed the Friends of Maldives, a British-based pressure group which helped to alert the world to the brutality of Mr Gayooms regime.

"Dauntsey's old boy and girl network assisted me a lot. Its education has served me well and Britain's private school education has a deserved reputation for excellence", said President Nasheed. After graduating in 1989, Mr Nasheed returned to the Maldives, where he soon became a champion of the democratic movement and a thorn in Mr Gayoom's side. During the next 19 years, Mr Gayoom mounted a sustained campaign of intimidation against him, exiling him on numerous occasions and allegedly ordering his torture. As a result of his treatment, in 2004 Mr Nasheed was granted political asylum in Britain, where he began lobbying MPs to put pressure on Mr Gayoom.

"It was the Conservatives who took an interest in us," he said. "Their human rights group took up our case and put pressure on the British government. At their conference they put me in touch with centre-right parties from Serbia to Sri Lanka and gave me a platform from which to tell the world about what was happening in the Maldives".

From 2006, the Tories sent party members to the islands to help Mr Nasheed campaign. During the current four-day visit, Spring will be joined by Karen Lumley, the prospective parliamentary candidate for Redditch and Mike Nichols, an activist. The delegation will give advice on strategic alliance building, messaging and campaigning in the run up to the election. Mr Spring said: "They deserve our support and they will certainly get it. We want to keep a spotlight on events unfolding in the Maldives."
"I am looking forward to receiving Richard's delegation and formally thanking the Conservative party for all the help they have given me. With their continued assistance I'm sure the MDP will win a handsome victory at the forthcoming elections" Mr Nasheed said.
Mr Nasheed is expected to request further British investment to boost the fragile economy of the Maldives, after having already negotiated with a number of British firms, including the telecommunications provider Cable and Wireless.
The visit will also be used to make a plea for British climate change scientists to visit the Maldives to study the effect of rising sea levels. Nowhere on the islands is more than one and a half metres above sea level, and scientists have given warning that the Maldives could disappear completely under the waves in just 150 years' time.