Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, the president of the Maldives, has been proclaimed the victor of a disputed presidential primary, but his opponent has yet to recognize the result amid claims of ballot fraud, heightening political unpredictability in the well-liked tourist paradise in the Indian Ocean.
The Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), which is in power, reported on Sunday that Solih received 61% of the vote, while Mohamed Nasheed received 38%. At least five people were detained for obstructing the voting process, and fights between opposing factions broke out at many polling places during the tense election that took place on Saturday.
Nasheed, the first democratically elected president of the Maldives who presided from 2008 to 2012, took a hit from the result. The 55-year-old was hoped to make a comeback after being disqualified from running for president in the previous election due to a “terrorist” conviction that was largely believed to be politically motivated.
Nasheed’s replacement, Solih, who won the 2018 election, has made a call for harmony.
The current president urged his rival to put differences aside while addressing a crowd of cheering supporters in Male, the capital of the Maldives.
The primary has concluded. The MDP must come together now and work as a team to win the presidential election, he declared on Saturday.
The Nasheed campaign, however, stated that it was “still evaluating the findings.”
The campaign accused the election of being rigged in a brief statement released late on Saturday. It read: “We are noticing that Nasheed is ahead in most of the ballot boxes, and his opponent is leading because of a few boxes where an extraordinary amount of votes have been cast.”
Hassan Latheef, the spokeswoman for Nasheed, had earlier stated that exit surveys indicated the former president would receive 64% of the vote. He tweeted, “Nasheed has won this election.
Concerns have been raised that the MDP, a party that Nasheed co-founded and has spearheaded a decades-long drive for democracy in the Maldives, may split as a result of the disagreement. Four years after Maldivians ousted former President Abdulla Yameen, who had oversaw a wide-ranging crackdown on dissent, including by imprisoning or driving nearly all of his political opponents into exile, it has also prompted concerns about rising unrest in the island nation of 500,000 people.
Childhood friends Nasheed and Solih, who sided with each other in the fight against Yameen, were estranged during the uprising against the despotic ruler.
Their conflict started in 2018 when the MDP’s highest decision-making body decided to switch Nasheed’s presidential ticket to Solih’s. Nasheed was in exile at the time; his first term in office had been ended by a military coup, and he had been jailed for 13 years on a false accusation of “terrorism.”
He reluctantly agreed to Solih’s candidacy, and the seasoned lawmaker went on to easily defeat Yameen.
After receiving a hero’s welcome upon his return home, Nasheed was elected speaker of the parliament.
But he swiftly distanced himself from the president, blaming him for failing to take action against corruption and extremist organizations linked to ISIL and al-Qaeda (ISIS).
Solih disputes this and asserts that after decades of unrest, he has brought “peace and stability” and “unparalleled development” to the Maldives.
Nasheed’s campaign has advised supporters to be wary of attempts to rig the election ahead of Saturday’s vote.
Additionally, on election day, the speaker’s supporters obstructed voting at a number of polling places by claiming that the representatives of Solih had stuffed the ballot boxes. Four voting places experienced conflicts as a result of the allegations, and on the island of Gadhdhoo in the southern Gaafu Dhaalu Atoll, individuals tore up some votes and damaged the ballot box. The fight led to a brief suspension of voting.
The same atoll’s Thinadhoo island witnessed a similar altercation.
Videos shared on Twitter depict a group of men fighting for control of the voting booth while shouting and kicking each other.
On one island, voting was likewise put on hold for a while.
Nevertheless, the MDP election committee maintains that the vote was “extremely successful.”
The committee’s chair, Ibrahim Waheed, told reporters on Sunday that just a small number of the 245 voting places experienced difficulties. He assured that there had been no cases of “double voting” by stating that the committee had received 50 objections regarding the vote.
He said that 57,225 eligible voters, or 70%, showed up to cast their ballots.
The pledges were disregarded by Nasheed’s supporters.
“This first one was taken. A Twitter user named @Mujookeynee posted a photo of one of the well-attended Nasheed campaign events in Male and stated, “The support for [Nasheed] is apparent here.
“The election was fixed… Twitter user @HKurusee commented, “#Anni2023 is still on,” referring to Nasheed by his handle.
On the basis of a track record of completing infrastructure projects, including supplying safe drinking water to the Maldives’ dispersed islands, Solih’s supporters claimed the president had won in a fair and transparent election. Additionally, they cited his promotion of free higher education and his leadership of the tourism-based economy during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Given the large margin, Dhauru news website editor Moosa Latheef claimed it was doubtful Nasheed could have won the election on Saturday.
Nasheed’s stubbornness to give in, according to Latheef, “does not auger well for our budding democracy.”
“A era of immense uncertainty is about to begin.”
Nasheed has a number of possibilities, including starting a brand-new party or electing to run for president as an independent. On the other hand, he might try to coerce Solih into supporting the president in the approaching election in exchange for concessions. These could include commitments to give the speaker’s faction a share of specific cabinet positions or to call a referendum on changing the country’s political system from a presidential to a parliamentary one.
Latheef said that it was difficult to predict what Nasheed might do.
