Malé, Maldives – MDP President Mohammed Nasheed, who refused to accept defeat after the failure of Saturday’s presidential primary, has finally accepted his defeat.
In a message to an MDP WhatsApp group in the morning, he said that if the election fraud is excluded, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih will lose a lot of votes.
However, even though he won the primary, the President will not win this year’s presidential election, he said.
“[Therefore] I propose to rebuild MDP branches in all islands in the name of “revival of an ideology”, more than 39,000 people who were cut off should rejoin the MDP and decide what we see with them,” Nasheed said. “A presidential candidate supported by the “revival of an ideology” will be determined later.”
Rumours have it that Nasheed is likely to contest the presidential election on his own if he does not see the change he wants in the MDP.
According to the provisional results, Nasheed received 15,641 votes. That’s 38.90 percent of the vote. President Solih received 24,566 votes. That’s 61.10 percent of the vote. 57,255 people were eligible to vote in the primary while 40,887 people cast their ballots, which is 71 percent of the eligible voters.
This year’s presidential election will be held on September 9.
The MDP is now preparing to officially hand over the presidential ticket to the winner of the primary, President Solih next month.
