The Maldivian Parliamentary Elections 2019, Where A Happy Result Can Be Predicted

By Panini Edirisinhe –APRIL 4, 2019

Panini Edirisinhe

The Parliamentary Elections in the Maldives on Saturday, the 6th April 2019 are likely to yield a result that will please not only the majority of Maldivians, but also most people in South Asia. All the hard work was done in the months leading up to the Presidential Elections on the 23rd of September 2018. What the Maldives Democratic Party have to now do is to reap the benefits, and pass the harvest on to the people of the Maldives. If Sri Lankans are alive to what is happening it may lead to the easing of the feeling of despondency that now hangs over our land, because that result was achieved by being as honest and transparent as is possible in this game of politics, and by playing fair.

Leading up to the September 2018 the task was to ensure that a free election was held.  In the seat of power was a non-entity who had turned into an amazingly ruthless and short-sighted dictator, Yameen Abdul Gayyoom. Ranged against him were the United Opposition, consisting of a number of disparate groups, which were bound to fall apart once the tyrant was defeated. They had all settled on just one candidate, so it was a two horse race, requiring no Second round of voting. It is not generally known, up to now, what a crucial part was played by two Sri Lankans, Rasika Peiris and Professor Ratnajeevan Hoole in ensuring an honest election.

That Yameen was unpopular was known to all keen observers but he had captured near absolute power of all independent institutions, including the elections authority, security forces, and both the judiciary and its watchdog body. He had been elected in 2013, defeating, Mohamed Nasheed, the man who had been the first democratically elected leader of the country in 2008. Nasheed had defeated Maumoon Abdul Gayoom who had manipulated his way to thirty years of rule as a dictator who had a rubber-stamp Majlis.

How I myself, have been personally following events in the Maldives for close upon sixty years is not something that need be gone in to, but let me state that I was in Male, full time, for three years, ending in December 1994, when I decided to return to Sri Lanka, owing to the changes here. It was about mid-1994 that I met Mohamed Nasheed, a prisoner, who had been allowed to come to his home in Male for medical treatment. Nasheed and I had a quite animated two hour chat in his home. It was a meeting that I cherished even then, because I realised even then that the earnest 27 year old was a remarkable man.  He, too, probably learnt a lot. He listens.  I had followed his career from Prisoner to President to Prisoner again, when I was informed by a Maldivian friend in August 2018 that “Anni” (that’s a nickname by which he is known to all) Nasheed and his candidate, Ibrahim (Ibu) Solih were having a meeting with Maldivian voters at the Berjaya Hotel, Mt Lavinia.  I rushed there;  he acknowledged some messages that I had sent him through his website, and he remembered our meeting in Male twenty-four years previously.

That brief meeting, at what was like a wedding reception, may represent the only time in my life when I made some contribution to the affairs of a State. The campaign was pressing ahead, although convinced that the election had already been rigged. I think that I effectively communicated my fervent belief to them. I said  that Professor Hoole was going to be unlike any other elections monitor if he was the guy being sent by us.

After that, the messages to Anni’s website continued, and I began educating the good Professor about these islands which he had never visited. Some months ago, the report that Rasika Peiris and Jeevan Hoole had presented came my way. To see it, click here.

Colombo Telegraph has had three articles recently, to which I contributed comments. To see them, see here, and here, and here.

Let me take you back to the story of how the Nasheed Presidency began.

By 2008, the world had its eyes trained on the Maldives for those elections that were forced on the then seventy year old Maumoon. He was then internationally known more as Gayoom – but using that family name now causes confusion with his half-brother Yameen. The system by then in place was one which specified a 50% majority, with dates announced early for two rounds of voting. Achieving that election had been owing to the work of  Mohamed Nasheed, then forty one years of age. By the time elections came round there were six candidates, each with Vice-Presidential running mate. Maumoon easily won that round obtaining 40% of the total 177,802  valid votes. Yes, the electorate is a small one. The turn out had been as high as 85.38%. Please note here the man who was fourth: Qasim Ibrahim, the man who is reputedly the richest man in the country, but trusted by none.

The four candidates who were eliminated threw their combined weight behind Nasheed, and he won the second round with 54.21% of the vote, which saw a slightly higher turn-out than in the first.   The Maldives had a freely elected President for the first time, with Dr Mohammed Waheed Hassan Manik (referred to as Dr Waheed) as Vice-President.

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