Former president of the Maldives, Maumoon Abdul Gayyoom has hit back at his successor, former president Mohamed Nasheed after he accused the former of tampering with votes.
Nasheed has always advocated for a parliamentary system of governance for the Maldives. Near to the end of Maumoon’s 30 year rule, in 2007, a referendum was taken to decide which governance system the country’s citizens preferred. The vote results indicated that the public preferred a presidential system.
Maumoon recently took to social media to state that a presidential governance system is most appropriate for the Maldives considering its political, social and economic conditions. Maumoon said the clear majority of Maldivian citizens chose the presidential system when the matter was put to vote.
Nasheed accused Maumoon of tampering with votes all throughout his presidential terms, and that the 2017 referendum vote was also tampered with by Maumoon. Nasheed, who became the Maldives’ first democratically elected president in 2008 when he defeated Gayyoom in 2018, claims that the 2018 presidential election was the only election Maumoon had failed to influence.
Responding to Nasheed, Gayyoom wrote on Twitter that it is disappointing that [some] consider the Maldivian people to be ignorant. He further asked why someone who influenced votes for 30 years had failed at tampering with the results of the 2018 presidential election. He asked for a sensible answer for his questions.
