The Maldives, a small island nation best known for tourism and a Cabinet meeting that was held underwater to draw attention to global warming, is in crisis. President Abdulla Yameen declared a state of emergency, cracking down on opposition politicians and Supreme Court judges who have challenged his rule. The country's location has elevated a domestic crisis into a geopolitical problem: Maldives is a potentially strategic outpost in the Indian Ocean.
The Maldives are a chain of 26 atolls, situated southwest of India and Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean. While the country's image is that of a sleepy tourist destination, national politics have been in near constant churn for several years. The islands became a British protectorate in 1887 and gained independence in 1965; a presidential republic was established three years later. Mohamed Nasheed became the country's first democratically elected president in 2009 but he resigned three years later after the police and army mutinied. In 2013, Yameen was elected president in a ballot that his opponents say was rigged.
Yameen's reign has been controversial. He has been accused of eroding democracy by silencing dissent and arresting opposition leaders. Nasheed was imprisoned in March 2015 on terrorism charges stemming from his decision to arrest a Supreme Court judge while he was president. (He was released on medical parole a year later.) Criticism of his policies and the threat of suspension prompted Yameen to withdraw Maldives from the U.K. Commonwealth.