Democrats to announce decision for election runoff tonight

The Democrats have said that they will come to and reveal an official decision regarding what they will do for the second round of the presidential elections which will be held on September 30, 2023.

Speaking to Sun, the Chairperson of The Democrats, Hassan Latheef, said that an official decision will be made during the party’s council meeting which will be held at 21:00 tonight.

The Democrats did contest the first round of the 2023 presidential elections. Hulhudhoo constituency MP, Ilyas Labeeb contested as The Democrats’ candidate and ended the first round with the third most votes. He got 15839 votes or seven percent.

While they failed to move onto the second round, The Democrats will play one of, if not the, most important role in how the results of the second round will turn out.

They have held discussions with both PPM and MDP prior to making a decision on who to support in the second round.

During these discussions, The Democrats asked MDP to agree to go to a vote to change the governing system from presidential to parliamentary, before September 25. The Democrats said that they asked this because that power rests with the President as of now.

They also extended the same condition to PPM. Which is to agree to take a vote to change the current system to a parliamentary system. The discussions with PPM came to a halt as they refused to sign an official document.

After that, former President Mohamed Nasheed tried to meet with former President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom, who is in Maafushi prison, in order to discuss this with him and to get his opinion.

However, Yameen declined the meeting with Nasheed. And so it seems to be that he is refusing to do any political work with Nasheed.

The options that are left for The Democrats is to work with MDP after agreeing to terms that both parties can agree with or to not support any candidate in the second round of the elections.