A senior government minister on Wednesday taunted chief main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) lawmaker Ibrahim Mohamed Solih - widely tipped as the party's presidential candidate in 2018 over losing his constituency to the ruling party in the local council elections on Saturday.
Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) had broken the long standing MDP stronghold by winning overwhelming majority on the Lhaviyani Atoll Hinnavaru council.
MDP and Solih have always enjoyed strong support in Hinnavaru, but the main opposition party had only managed to secure a solitary seat in the council on Saturday.
Speaking during the first of a series of ruling coalition rally's on Wednesday evening, fisheries minister Dr Mohamed Shainee said Solih was widely tipped to be the opposition's presidential candidate in 2018 given the fact all other opposition leaders including former president Mohamed Nasheed, former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and Jumhoory Party (JP) leader Gasim Ibrahim out of the reckoning.
"Solih is the only senior politicians left in their ranks. But he has lost his own constituency. So they've lost their only choice. Who else do they have to nominate," Shainee said.
The resounding PPM victory in Hinnavaru was little consolation in an otherwise disappointing elections for the ruling party after MDP backed by the united opposition had secured more than half the seats including the constituencies with the largest populations.
Shainee however, insisted that a closer look at the numbers show that incumbent president Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom had won.
"They got majority votes by teaming up. But president Yameen had garnered more votes alone," he explained.
A total of 1,487 candidates had contested the elections for 664 seats including 563 councilors to 179 island councils, 67 councilors to 18 atoll councils and 23 councilors to three city councils.
Though 255,987 Maldivians were eligible to vote, voter turnout was reportedly much lower than expected despite the elections commission extending voting by two hours.
The elections has largely been incident free with the elections commission confirming that no major complaints have been received thus far.
The victory would be a major boost for the now united opposition which had continued to portray the arguably least popular elections in the archipelago as a referendum to showcase public support for the opposition.
Originally slated for January 14 the council elections had been delayed thrice, first ordered by the civil court over the rift in the ruling Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) and twice by the elections commission.
After rescheduling the polls for April 8 after the court ruling, the commission postponed the polls again to April 15, claiming that public schools were unavailable to accommodate polling stations at an earlier date before delaying it for the third time to May 6 after the swine flu outbreak.
Compared to the more illustrious parliamentary and presidential elections, the council elections in the past have been considered less significant to the political parties in the Maldives since the decentralized system was introduced in 2009.
However, the elections comes amid an intense showdown between the government and the now opposition parties as both sides urging the people to come out in numbers to declare their support through the vote.
