Nasheed says Solih blocked attempts to avoid MDP primary
Nasheed said he made two attempts to allow Solih to contest the presidential election without internal competition.
Top Stories
Former President Mohamed Nasheed said on Monday that he had twice attempted to give then-President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih a path to contest the presidential election without a primary, but the efforts failed due to Solih’s decisions.
Nasheed sent the message to an MDP WhatsApp group following the resignation of Fayyaz Ismail as the party’s chairman on Sunday.
Nasheed began his message by thanking Fayyaz for outlining, in his resignation letter, how the MDP lost both the 2023 presidential election and the 2024 parliamentary election.
Nasheed said he made two attempts to allow Solih to contest the presidential election without internal competition.
“Some of President Solih’s associates and President Solih did not like it and believed they could win the election without us,” Nasheed wrote.
Solih later won the MDP presidential ticket, but Nasheed did not back him in the national election. Instead, Nasheed left the MDP, formed the Democrats, and fielded a separate candidate. The division within the MDP is widely regarded as a key factor in Solih’s loss. Nasheed has since rejoined the party.
Fayyaz’s resignation letter detailed the efforts made to bridge the rift between Solih and Nasheed, noting that neither side reached a workable agreement.
According to the letter:
-
At Nasheed’s request, Fayyaz met Nasheed’s team five times at Parliament House. Discussions covered Nasheed’s possible withdrawal from the MDP primary, holding a systematic vote on the governance model before the presidential election, and the MDP’s potential support for a parliamentary system.
-
The talks ended without progress.
-
Negotiations resumed at Solih’s request, and an agreement was reached.
-
“However, a few days later, some senior party leaders believed that they should not proceed as agreed with President Nasheed,” Fayyaz wrote.
