Quotes of the Day

In February, you were forced to resign following what many say was a coup fomented by those loyal to the old dictatorship of President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. Was there nothing popular about the movement against you?
Where are the flowers? Where are the people behind them? Let me see one person coming out on the street and being happy about it. And look at the amount of people coming out in our favor, in our support. There's no popularity in the coup. It's just a group of people who schemed it out.

Were you scared for your life during the coup?
I was very scared for my life. I was on the brink of it. I've been tortured twice [as a democracy activist]. I've been brought to the brink. This is the third time. It's really quite a bad sensation.

After all the optimism that surrounded your victory in 2008 in the country's first free elections, what happened?
You can get rid of a dictator, but you can't get rid of a dictatorship. You can get rid of a person very easily, but the networks, the intricacies, the establishments — you have to flush them. And to do that is not an easy thing.

Do you regret not doing that?
There was just not enough time. The lesson is we didn't deal with Gayoom. That's the obvious lesson. And my romantic ideas of how to deal with a dictator were wrong. I will agree with that. But also we were bringing in reforms very rapidly. We were liberalizing the outlook of the country very, very rapidly, especially to do with Islamic radicalism. Our ideas of moderation, of moderate Islam — there were some small, entrenched sections that reacted strongly against me.

How widespread was this religious opposition?
There were religious extremists in the military. I didn't think they were under a single command. I thought there were odd people here and there. But there were a core of radical Islamists who fueled the coup through media and by harping on about how un-Islamic I am. I must confess, I'm not the most pious of the people. But I am a strong believer.

Gayoom's family and friends have entered the new government. What are his plans?
His designs are to have a stronger hold on power. He would avoid an election. He'll start running things through the military. My fear is that we're not going back to pre-2008 Maldives. We're going back to pre-2008 other countries, to Pakistan, perhaps, where the military becomes so strong that they call the shots.

You want new elections to be held. Are you confident you would win?
I am very, very confident that the people will decide upon us. And the thing is not who wins an election — it's the fact that you have to have one. It's the fact that a government is formed through the people.

India and the U.S., among other countries, seemed to recognize the coup. Are you disappointed by that?
I'm very shocked by the manner in which they behaved. I'm very sad. We did so much to encourage internationalism, encourage liberalism. To always back the status quo, always be on the safe side — that doesn't lead to good governance internationally.

Would you have welcomed foreign intervention to halt the coup?
In my mind, that's not how you do it. There were a group of military, about 60 soldiers, who were asking me to open the armory so they could shoot at the [coup-supporting] police. And I said, "No, no, no, we don't want to do that." They were saying, "President, the only way for you to survive is to shoot at them." So I thought, come on, I don't want to survive after shooting them.

Amid all this, a documentary film of your fight against climate change during your first year in power has just opened in the U.S. What do you hope audiences will learn from it?
Climate change is very, very real. [The film] brings a personal angle to it. You see the low-lying Maldives and how fragile it is. And it's not just the Maldives — a third of the world's population lives in these fragile conditions. What happens to the Maldives will happen to you tomorrow.

• Ishaan Tharoor
• Ousted in a coup, former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed discusses his struggle for democracy