Malé, Maldives – Former President and incumbent Speaker of the Maldives Parliament Mohamed Nasheed has expressed disappointment at the Komandoo By-Election results and stated that the ruling party will not remain in power without converting the governing system to a parliamentary system.
Nasheed said this in a private Whatsapp message shared with MDP members.
Thank you. But [we] did not cross the 50 percent [mark]. We [MDP] will not remain in power without implementing the parliamentary system.
Speaker Mohamed Nasheed
The Speaker has raised concerns after the Komandoo by-elections since majority of the voters of the constituency voted against governing party MDP (51.4%) despite an MDP win.
While opposition has maintained a similar stance asserting that the Komandoo by-election was a loss for MDP, they have also accused MDP of using undue influence to win the election, with the announcement of multiple government project announced close to the election date.
Speaker Nasheed has on multiple occasions pushed to convert the current presidential system to a parliamentary system. Nasheed has signed a petition of over 109,000 signatures previously, urging President Solih to convert the governance system to parliamentary. President Solih has not taken any action regarding the matter.
