1597. 🇲🇻 Maldives Rejoins The Commonwealth.

Highest value of first set, 1906

🇲🇻 Maldives was readmitted to membership of The Commonwealth on 1 February 2020. The total membership of the organisation now stands again at 54 countries.
  Maldives left The Commonwealth on 13 October 2016 after the then President Abdulla Yameen complained that The Commonwealth was treating the country unfairly after Yameen’s government was given 6 months to address concerns about the treatment and detention of opposition leaders, its meddling with the Judiciary and its undermining of democratic institutions. Subsequently Yameen was defeated in a general election by Ibrahim Solih in 2018 and the new president indicated his government’s wish for the republic to rejoin The Commonwealth. President Solih’s decision to seek Maldives’ return to full Commonwealth has now been made reality.
  This is not necessarily good news for Commonwealth stamp collectors as the vast majority of the Maldives’ postal administration’s stamp issues are currently handled by its philatelic agents, the notorious Stamperija, and it means that The Commonwealth now has 3 members which allow their philatelic reputations to be dragged through the mud by continuing to have contracts with Stamperija (the others being Mozambique and Sierra Leone). Needless to say, unless this situation changes very few of the returning member’s new postage stamps will be finding their way into my Commonwealth collection, certainly as long as Stamperija is allowed to continue to produce new issues for Maldives..
  Nevertheless, welcome back Maldives. It is interesting to note that Maldives rejoined The Commonwealth just one hour after the United Kingdom left the European Union.

Not a native animal obviously, issued 2019.