The late Saturday (25 February) decision of the Jumhooree Party (JP) in the MDP-led ruling combine in Maldives to contest the September presidential polls on its own will not affect the stability of the incumbent Ibrahim ‘Ibu’ Solih’s government. In the US kind of executive presidency, even if the JP ministers exit the Solih team, it will not upset the government’s stability, as the party has only three MPs in the 87-member Parliament, whereas the otherwise divided MDP has 65 members, over 50 of them Solih loyalists.
The not-so-unexpected JP decision came a day after another existing ally, namely, the religion-centric Adhaalath Party (AP) pledged continued support to Solih, who had won the MDP nomination against one-time friend Nasheed, 61-38 percent in nationwide primaries. The AP responded promptly after Solih had written to existing and prospective allies for an alliance. Another ally, the Maumoon Reform Movement (MRM) has deferred a decision on Solih’s missive, seeking support, until the return of party founder and former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom from his overseas trip.
At the same time, the Maldivian Democratic Alliance (MDA), which has been lying low after distancing itself from the government of predecessor President Abdulla Yameen before Solih defeated the latter in the 2018 polls, has since pledged its support for the incumbent. In doing so, the MDA, like the JP, rebuffed the open invitation to support Yameen, nominated by the Opposition PPM-PNC combine but is just now disqualified, pending the disposal of the criminal court sentencing him to five years’ imprisonment in the corruption-cum-money-laundering case, from his presidential past.
The MDA has denied reports that support for Solih owed to party founder ‘Sun’ Ahmed Siyam Mohammed owing $24 m to the Hilton group of hotels, as per a Singapore arbitration verdict (and undisclosed sums to Chinese banks). A senior party leader also reiterated that the Yameen camp’s ‘India Out’ campaign was ‘useless propaganda’.
Multi-cornered contest
The JP’s decision, if taken to its logical conclusion, can make for a multi-cornered contest. One outside possibility is that jailed former President Abdulla Yameen continues to remain disqualified, with his PPM-PNC combine refusing to field an alternate candidate. For now, JP’s Gasim Ibrahim met with President Solih one-on-one, as if in response to the latter’s open invitation for reiterating the alliance, but with the JP congress’ mandate in hand. That was also after Gasim had declared that there was no MDP without Nasheed. Pro-Solih analysts interpret this to mean that Gasim wanted an MDP patch-up but on Nasheed’s terms.
Apart from the MDP and the PPM-PNC combine, the infant Maldives National Party (MNP) has named party founder and former defence minister, Col Mohamed Nazim (retd), as its presidential candidate. Former home minister Umar Naseer has indicated his intention to contest as an independent, to ‘take Maldives in a new direction’, but he is yet to activate his poll machinery.
With a 90-percent turn-out in past elections indicating a majority requirement of 127,000 votes in an expected electorate of 283,000, the MDP remains the single largest party with 58,000 members, followed by the PPM with 38,000 and the JP, 23,000. The MNP and AP have since slipped from the mandatory membership of 10,000 people for State funding by a few hundred votes or less, while the MRM faces de-registration by the EC for slipping below the 3,000 mark.
Nasheed, who heads the MDP and has yet rebelled against Solih’s nomination, has promptly declined the invitation for patch-up talks with the other camp, also a prominent non-party speaker at the JP congress (Solih and Gayoom, though invited, were not in the country). After losing the MDP primaries, he promptly declared his intention to enrol 50,000 members for his movement for the ‘ideological re-birth’ of the MDP (‘Fikuregge Dhirun’ in Dhivehi) and to decide on his support at the end of it. Though Nasheed is silent, an aide has since claimed that they have signed up those numbers.
Another Nasheed aide has since threatened to move a no-confidence motion against President Solih in Parliament if the other side tried to remove him as Speaker. Months back, the Solih camp indicated that they were under pressure to move a no-trust vote against Nasheed, on charges of anti-party activities and for misusing the Speaker’s position for his kind of personalised politics. While a no-trust vote against the Speaker entails only a simple majority, which the Solih leadership anyway commands, impeaching the President requires a two-thirds vote and also a Supreme Court endorsement, both of which are far away, just now.
Nasheed had earlier complained that the pro-Solih MDP chairperson and economic development minister Fayyaz Ismail had struck down 45,000 names from the party’s membership registry, of which 39,000 were his supporters. Former MDP international affairs spokesperson Hamid Abdul Ghafoor has moved the civil court, claiming irregularity in the removal and later-day restoration of his name from the membership list. It is too early to predict if the court’s findings will have a bearing on the presidential poll — and if so, how and how far.
Two-phase poll
Though not yet declared, Gasim Ibrahim will be the JP’s presidential candidate. Suffice to point out that the party’s decision, coincidentally, was preceded by aides of Solih and Nasheed meeting Gasim Ibrahim separately, and the latter, twice in as many days. In his speech at the party congress, the billionaire businessman, a political veteran in his right, criticised both the incumbent MDP and the PPM, for adopting a use-and-throw approach to the party, expressed an aversion for coalitions, but also praised Nasheed all the same for helping him out when President Yameen was harassing him in multiple ways. He pointed out how their support alone had helped form governments after the second, run-off round polls in 2008 and 2013, and his pre-poll backing helped Solih create history by winning the presidency in the first round, for the first time.
Detractors however point out how Gasim’s highest first-round vote-figure of 24,000 in 2013 was wholly inadequate to make the grade, then or now. So were the first-round figures of victors Nasheed in 2008 and Yameen in 2013, his supporters point out, indicating a possible return to a two-round poll this time. In a party where Gasim’s wife and transport minister Aishath Nurulla was re-elected as one of the five vice presidents with the highest number of votes, critics also laughed away Gasim’s observation that youngsters were not coming forward to contest party posts.
Though the JP spokespersons had indicated a party-led coalition for the presidential polls earlier, the congress’ resolution seemingly forbids coalitions. Thus, it makes for an interesting turn to see how a serious politician like Gasim, towards the fag end of his political career, hopes to make it. For now, he has inducted former finance minister and Yameen-era vice-president Abdulla Jihad as a fifth advisor, implying the seriousness with which he views the economic situation. Vice-President Faisal Naseem was a notable absentee at the JP plenary, and party men, for long, have been upset over President Solih’s perceived role in encouraging his ‘defection’ from within.
Yameen told to pay up
For its part, the Yameen-led PPM-PNC combine had invited the rest of them all, including Nasheed and Gasim, to join the party alliance to ‘defeat Solih’. They insisted that jailed-and-disqualified Yameen would be their candidate, and expressed confidence that the high court would acquit him of all charges, and by March.
In between, the criminal court has ordered Yameen to pay up $3.4 million as swindled funds (including interest) within six months even while serving an 11-year jail term. His legal team is confident that higher courts would free him on merit as the ‘lower court had not reasoned out its verdict’. They also cite the previous case in which the trial court had jailed Yameen for five years along with a hefty fine, but the Supreme Court freed him, for near-similar reasons as they have advanced just now.
Be it as it may, the question is if Yameen had the luxury of time for the high court, where the appeal is now pending, and the Supreme Court, if moved, dispose of the case, before the closure of the presidential poll nomination, fixed for 3 August. For now, the party asserts that Yameen alone is their candidate and has appealed to the international community to ensure a free and fair election — a plea that other parties had made when he was in power during the 2018 presidential polls.
Though not conclusive in any way, all eyes are now on the parliamentary by-poll for the Guraidhoo seat, set for 15 April. The seat fell vacant following the death of the PPM incumbent, Ibrahim Riza. The results apart, Maldives-watchers would be looking for clues on how the Nasheed faction in the MDP and the JP gel, if at all, and what results they can show up, ahead of the presidential polls that anyway is months away, in September.
Of equal interest would be Nasheed’s new position, if any, on his consistent demand for a transition to the parliamentary scheme, which Gasim and the JP have opposed in the past, and also the latter’s current disposition to the PPM kind of ‘India Out’ campaign, which the other has despised all along. Thus far, the JP has mostly remained silent on the matter.
The writer is a Chennai-based policy analyst & political commentator. Views expressed are personal.
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