Nasheed decides against contesting next year’s parliamentary election

Mohamed Nasheed, the former Maldivian President and incumbent Central Machangolhi MP, has decided against contesting next year’s parliamentary elections.

Nasheed announced his decision in a message to a WhatsApp group for parliamentarians on Wednesday.

While Nasheed himself will not be running in next year’s elections, his party, the Democrats, plans on contesting the election.

Nasheed had resigned as Parliament’s Speaker earlier this month, in face of a no-confidence motion submitted against him by his former party, the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP). Nasheed and his party had faced allegations of blocking the motion for weeks, before he eventually resigned, after the MDP won a case lodged with the Supreme Court over the issue.

Nasheed was originally elected to the Parliament in 1999, as one of two representatives for Male’.

In 2005, he founded the MDP, and led the party until he resigned earlier this year, following differences between him and then-Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.

Nasheed won the 2008 Maldives presidential election but resigned mid-term.

He had been MDP’s prime choice as a candidate in the 2018 presidential election. However, his since overturned terror conviction rendered him ineligible. He endorsed Solih, a close childhood friend and another founding MDP member, as a candidate.

He later successfully contested the 2019 parliamentary elections, on a MDP ticket.

But differences soon arose between him and Solih, mainly due to lack of support for his push to change the system of governance in Maldives from the current presidential system to a parliamentary one.

Nasheed eventually left the MDP to form a new party – the Democrats.

The Democrats contested against MDP in the first round of the Maldives presidential election in September. The party placed third, with seven percent of votes.