THE MALDIVES: Didi-Dee & Didi-Dum

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Most nations take years and shed much blood running the political gamut from monarchy to anarchy. But in the placid, unruffled Maldive Islands, which lie some 400 miles southwest of Ceylon in the Indian Ocean, these things are done more calmly. Last January, after centuries of autocratic rule under a sultanate, the Maldives became the world's youngest republic by simple popular vote (TIME, Jan. 12). There was no trouble whatever; the sultans had long since tired of their confining work, and Amin Didi, the man the Maldivians unanimously elected to serve as both President and Prime Minister in the new republic, was next in line for sultan anyway. Just to keep it all in the family, Ibrahim Mohamed Didi, a cousin, was elected vice president.

Last week the Maldives passed smoothly into another stage of political evolution. Ibrahim and another cousin, Ibrahim Ali Didi, tossed cousin Amin Didi in jail and took over the government themselves. Just what the political stage was at that point no outsider knew, since the Maldives' only connection with the world is through still another cousin, Ahmed Hilmi Didi, who promptly quit his job as ambassador to Ceylon. "I have been kept completely in the dark," said Ahmed Didi last week. "All I know is that Amin Didi has resigned."