President: I will not abandon MDP members who struggled for years on the streets

I will not abandon any of the MDP members who struggled for years on the streets to bring the party to power, states President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.

President Solih, who is running against MDP’s leader and Parliament speaker, former president Mohamed Nasheed in the MDP presidential primary, made the promise during a campaign tour of Sh. Kanditheem on Thursday.

President Solih said that he was elected to office in 2018 after President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom’s “autocratic rule”.

“We have experienced five years of tyranny. Tyranny and fear. Certainly, many of the people I see before me have experienced numerous abuses,” he said.

President Solih said that the seven years of hard work, struggle and sacrifice trying to bring MDP to power cannot be erased from history.

“I cannot abandon the people who joined me in the streets in face of tyranny. Therefore, the people who pretend it never happened and do not see those five-seven years will never share these feelings,” he said.

President Solih said that no Maldivian citizen would want development projects to stall, and asked MDP members to think about that when they vote in the primary.

He highlighted on the efforts of his administration to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic.

President Solih said that Maldives had managed the crisis far better than other larger countries because of his administration’s sound policies.

He said that it was important to see how leaders deal with crises.

“Maldives will experience the impact of major crises and incidents in other parts of the world. The actions of the leaders in power in such situations must be properly scrutinized. I believe the people come first,” he said.

President Solih said that no administration must make a decision that is damaging to the people.

He criticized the actions of Nasheed’s administration in dealing with the economic crises of 2008 and 2009.

“The salaries of civil servants were significantly reduced in the name of minimizing government expenditure. People were fired. The adverse impacts of this affected individual citizens,” he said.

“However, with the way we implemented our policies in face of Covid, I believe no Maldivian citizen was affected anywhere close to the level they would have been, or how the people of neighboring countries were affected,” he said.

President Solih asked for MDP members to vote for him in the primary so that his administration can win a second term in office.