Solih’s recent victory in the presidential primaries deals a blow to the Opposition candidates Nasheed and Yameen’s campaigns
President Ibrahim ‘Ibu’ Solih won the presidential primaries of the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) by a substantial margin in end-January as he had bagged the high office in 2018, plunging the nation into election mode. With the main Opposition candidate and predecessor Abdulla Yameen disqualified as of now, pending his two-stage appeal against the jail term handed down by the criminal court, a clear picture is expected to emerge by April-end.
In a direct contest, Solih defeated the party’s long-term boss and Parliament Speaker Mohammed ‘Anni’ Nasheed, who is also the nation’s first president under the multi-party democracy scheme (2008), by 61-39 percent vote shares, at the end of a no-holds-barred campaign, spearheaded by the rival candidates, personally. He has since followed it up with the annual presidential address at the Parliament on 6 February, promising pay increments for civil servants, loan concession to students, and decentralised healthcare.
Maldives is a tourism economy, and in his annual address, President Solih fixed a higher 1.8 million arrivals in 2023, after comfortably crossing the 1.6-m target set for the previous year, even as the global economy was still limping back from the COVID-enforced all-round abnormality.
For the residents of the Malé area, the most densely-populated national capital in South Asia, President Solih promised more housing plots, what with work and promises of the early distribution of houses in suburban islands too still doing the rounds. All these are live electoral issues for decades, with successive presidents doing their bit.
Ahead of the primaries, Solih disproved rival campaigns that he was indecisive and not tough enough for the job, from within the party and outside, by hiking GST and TGST (Tourism GST) from this fiscal, commencing on 1 January, saying that the nation’s economy demanded the unpopular measure in an election year. Maldives is a tourism economy, and in his annual address, President Solih fixed a higher 1.8 million arrivals in 2023, after comfortably crossing the 1.6-m target set for the previous year, even as the global economy was still limping back from the COVID-enforced all-round abnormality.
In a way, Solih’s victory could have blunted the Nasheed campaign of President Solih’s continued accommodation of corruption in his government. In a way, it may have also de-incentivised the ‘India Out’ campaign of the main Opposition PPM-PNC combine, identified with their presidential nominee Yameen, though only to a limited extent. This is because the nation’s ‘India policy’ was never in question in the MDP primaries, as all sections within the party are with the Solih government on this one issue.
After the results of the primaries were announced, Speaker Nasheed seemingly had a difficult time convincing himself and his followers, and delayed conceding the election, but with a call for an ‘opportunity to re-determine the victor’, which was promptly rejected by the Solih camp. However, he still insisted that he would not support Solih in the presidential polls. Post-primaries, the two happened to meet at the Republic Day reception hosted by the Indian High Commission and exchanged pleasantries.
Economic Development Minister Fayyaz Ismail, who as MDP chairman, controls the membership registry and other administrative matters—Nasheed as president is in control of the party’s policies and programmes—lost no time in declaring that nothing should be done ‘violating the party rules’.
What should worry the Solih camp now is Nasheed’s add-on decision to travel across the country to try and enlist 50,000 more members for the party before election time. Economic Development Minister Fayyaz Ismail, who as MDP chairman, controls the membership registry and other administrative matters—Nasheed as president is in control of the party’s policies and programmes—lost no time in declaring that nothing should be done ‘violating the party rules’.
Nasheed continues to contest the independent Election Commission’s (EC) verified figure of 57,000 registered members in the MDP as against his claim of 94,000. Even while conceding the primaries, Nasheed reiterated his allegation that a high number of 39,000 of his supporters were stuck off the rolls. He said that he would decide on the presidential candidate of his choice after getting those members re-registered.
In his post-primaries news conference, Nasheed also declared that he would not leave the MDP, implying the possibility of his fielding another candidate as an ‘independent’. For now, however, five of the 15 ‘Nasheed MPs’ from a total of 65 in the 87-member Parliament have crossed over to the Solih camp, before and after the primaries, against one doing it in the reverse on poll-eve. The Solih camp leadership of the parliamentary party has also since issued a ‘back-dated’ caution letter to a Nasheed MP for violating the three-line whip on voting for the GST and TGST tax-hike bills, late last year, without indicating any impending disciplinary action. According to media reports, the government has also hinted at replacing political appointees opposed to the President (as most of them were chosen by Nasheed when the two leaders were together)
Now that their leader has won the party primaries convincingly, the Solih camp is gazing at the imponderables ahead. Parties are now strategising for a two-round poll, which means they also divide their resources accordingly. Whether or not Yameen is in the fray, rivals have to provide for a substantial share of the votes that he polled in 2018 and much of which he could still be able to ‘transfer’ to an alternative candidate of his choice.
The Solih camp leadership of the parliamentary party has also since issued a ‘back-dated’ caution letter to a Nasheed MP for violating the three-line whip on voting for the GST and TGST tax-hike bills, late last year, without indicating any impending disciplinary action.
It is in the face of this electoral reality and given the confidence gained from a coalition-based first-round victory in 2018, Solih has been reiterating the need for continuing with alliance politics, whose partners in the second round polls of 2008 and 2013 had brought in more than half the votes polled by the respective victors. It is only against this that Nasheed has been demanding a transition to the parliamentary scheme almost since after the previous polls.
Pointing out how the MDP could win 65 of 87 seats in a multi-party parliamentary polls in 2019 and without major allies, Nasheed also says that the party could live up to its ideologies and past character and commitments only in the absence of a coalition, as this requires a lot of accommodation and compromises. He has since converted his primaries’ slogan, "Fikuregge Dhirun,”, meaning ‘ideological revival’, also as the cause for his membership enrolment drive.
Of course, intra-MDP issues are only one of the many concerns haunting the Solih strategists. There is the ‘Yameen factor’ as his legal defence is hopeful of the leader obtaining freedom from the appeals court by March—otherwise a pep-talk for camp-followers. The Yameen camp leaders have since promised their cadres that their leader’s name will be on the ballot paper. They protested both inside and outside Parliament as Solih delivered his address.
The Yameen camp also held a three-day ‘Hope Conference’ in Malé, where speakers including former President Mohammed Waheed Hassan Manik, declared that they would ‘not let democracy fall’. They characterised Yameen’s detention and Solih’s continuance in office as ‘illegal’ and demanding the release of the former and the exit of the latter. They have also been doing the diplomatic rounds in Malé and Colombo, as most nations have their diplomatic establishments for Maldives co-accredited in the Sri Lankan capital.
For now, the PPM-PNC combo is firm that Yameen and Yameen alone is their candidate—and have not indicated if there would be an alternative, as the two-stage appeal could well go beyond the 3 August deadline for filing nominations for the first-round polls fixed for 9 September. Should Yameen field another candidate in his place, loyalty would be the first major factor, but then there could be murmurs of protest from other aspirants. If the decision is to boycott the polls, it could change the dynamics and arithmetic of the presidential polls, as other candidates in the field may hope to pocket at least a portion of the Yameen votes, with or without his blessings.
Should Yameen field another candidate in his place, loyalty would be the first major factor, but then there could be murmurs of protest from other aspirants.
It is in this background, the national congress of the Jumhoore Party (JP) ally in the ruling coalition, set now for 24-25 February, assumes added significance. They know a coalition is an anathema to Nasheed now, though not when he became President with the party’s support in the second round. But with Solih being the MDP candidate now and given the electoral dynamics and arithmetic, it is a difficult decision for the JP also to take.
Then, there is former Defence Minister, Col Mohamed Nazim, founder of the nascent Maldives National Party (MNP) and ex-Home Minister Umar Naseer, a relatively religious conservative, who have announced their candidature. The decision of a third possible candidate in the leader of the Maldivian Democratic Alliance (MDA), Ahmed ‘Sun’ Siyam Mohamed, is still awaited. The question is if they have more than a fair chance and whose votes between the two main parties would each of them cut into, if at all.
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
N. Sathiya Moorthy is a policy analyst and commentator based in Chennai.
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