Nasheed open to coalition in run-off, but conditional on votes

MDP president Mohamed Nasheed, who is contesting in the presidential primary, has said that if he has to go to the second round in the upcoming presidential elections, he can form an alliance with other parties, but that can be done only on the basis of the votes received.

Speaking to his campaign team, Nasheed, who is also the speaker of the parliament, said that if there is a situation where an alliance has to be formed, it will be done in a different way.

"After the first round of general elections, if MDP has to forge an alliance with others again, we will look at the parties that have voted in the first round," he said.

While Nasheed pointed out that an alliance would be formed based on the votes polled by the parties in the first round, an alliance otherwise would be a gross injustice as well as a large number of people being left out.

For example, the former president described the MDP-led coalition in the 2018 presidential election and the parliamentary elections held the following year. 

"Take a look, MDP entered this coalition with 40% as our demands from the government. But when the parliamentary vote, [after the presidential election] was taken, MDP had clear majority. MDP got two-thirds of the seats," said Nasheed, who has been advocating against political coalitions since time immemorial.

Nasheed and President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih have different views on coalitions. Nasheed's idea is to contest in the first round as MDP alone, and consider coalitions in the second round in a different way. On the contrary, President Solih's intention is to ensure that the current government remains as the current coalition and contest in the first round of elections the same way.