Last night in the Math Building, a Stanford graduate detailed his return to the Maldives — his homeland — to oppose a regime that has been in place for 28 years. But one of his main challenges, he said, is his disagreement with fellow opposition members, who favor a more militant approach to toppling the regime.

Mohammed Waheed, a former member of the Maldivan Parliament, lived in exile for the past decade and favors nonviolent reform. He has returned home to join a newly formed opposition party.

The Maldives is a Sunni Muslim nation in the Indian Ocean, composed of more than 1,000 islands with approximately 350,000 inhabitants. Maumoom Abdul Gayoom has been the island nation’s president since 1978.

Opponents such as Waheen claim that even though he is an elected president, Gayoom has created a dictatorship.

“There is no separation of powers,” Waheed said. “The president appoints all judges and he fires them. He sets the punishment for all political prisoners. He rigs every single presidential election. He appoints eight members of the 15-member parliament.”

Waheed has experienced the effects of repression firsthand. His brother, an artist, was sentenced to 15-years in prison for giving information to Amnesty International, he said. Members of his family and campaign staff were arrested during his last term in Parliament.

But after the 2004 tsunami, which devastated parts of the Maldives, there has been increased international presence there. Waheed claims that pressure from the United Nations, which created a commission to study human rights in the nation, forced the government to allow the creation of opposition political parties for the first time in the current regime’s history.

This prompted Waheed to leave his job at the U.N. and plan to run in the 2008 elections.

“People are tired of having one government for 28 years,” he said. “The opposition is in a position to present policies that will benefit more people than the current policies of the government.”

Waheed is a former high school principal who went on to earn a PhD in international education from Stanford. He was elected to the Maldivan Parliament by the largest majority in its history. However, his reformist views eventually led to persecution and exile. He then pursued a career in the United Nations, where he was director of the U.N. Children’s Fund in Tanzania and Afghanistan, following the U.S. invasion. After the government allowed opposition parties to form, he returned to his homeland and joined the Maldivan Democratic Party.

However, not even his party is a united front. In December, he lost his bid to lead the MDP.

“I lost by a few votes,” Waheed said, “Partly because of my moderate stance. There is so much frustration among the youth right now. They would like to see this resolved in the streets. And I didn’t favor that. The presidency and chairmanship of the party has fallen to others who support a more militant approach.”

In his years working for the U.N., Waheen has seen the effects of civil strife.

“I’ve been to Nepal, and you’re reading about what’s happening there,” he said. “I did three years in Afghanistan. I don’t wish any country to go that route. It causes too much damage and suffering. And it can be avoided. We need leaders who can communicate. We need leadership that will create a peaceful path towards transition.”

Waheed strongly opposed violence even if the government refused to honor an election outcome that could result in a win for the opposition.

“There are many options,” he said. “One option is to fight for your rights. But you can fight in many ways. I think it is a conscious choice people make. And people [don’t always] take arms and fight because that is the best thing to do.

“Sometimes they do it because it is the easiest,” he added. “Arms are available and there are interests that promote the sale of arms. It is possible to buy AK-47s on the street. But there are options. Now we are seeing cases where the international community forces the government to let go. And the international community prevailed.”

Waheed remains a part of the MDP, but he is considering another run for the leadership or attempting to form his own party. He believes that he has a broad base of support.

“I have the support of more than a third of the party,” he said in an interview with The Daily. “I believe that most of them joined the party because of me. It’s a small country, so most people know me or know about me. They know of my history as a politician and because of my international experience, they see me as a future leader of the country.”

Waheed’s talk was sponsored by a variety of organizations, including the Muslim Students Awareness Network (MSAN), the African Students Association and the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Sophomore Ahmed Maani, a member of MSAN who helped to organize the talk, hoped students would learn about less well-known parts of the world.

“We want to raise awareness of developing countries that people don’t know much about,” he said. “When you ask people about the Maldives, people just don’t know what it’s about. Our mission is to raise awareness about the diversity of the Muslim world.”