According to Sunday’s decision of Maldives’ Supreme Court, jailed former President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom is not allowed to run for September’s presidential election. The election will take place on September 9.
The court’s decision will hamper the election agenda of the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) as it declared former president Abdulla Yameen as their presidential candidate before he was convicted and given a 11-month jail sentence in December last year for corruption and money laundering over kickbacks from a private company while he was president.
The Progressive Party of Maldives submitted Yameen’s candidacy to the Election Commission last week on August 1 even while he was serving a jail term and is not allowed to run for public office as per the rules by the Maldives Constitution and Elections Commission regulations. The party argued that the commission’s interpretation of the constitution’s requirements for presidential candidates was incorrect.
Justice Husnu Al Suood ruled “that Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom is ineligible as he doesn’t meet the conditions stipulated under article 109 is the correct decision.”
After losing power in 2018, Yameen, the half-brother of former dictator Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, was looking to regain it. He ran an anti-Indian influence campaign in the Maldives and worried its South Asian neighbour.
Maldives is an epicentre for rivalry between India and China for grabbing power in the region due to its proximity to important maritime channels in the Indian Ocean.
The Progressive National Congress, the PPM’s coalition partner, has indicated that it will run a candidate if the Supreme Court ruled Yameen ineligible.
Despite the Maldivian Democratic Party breaking up in June as a result of tensions between President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih and another former president, Mohamed Nasheed, Solih is still running for re-election. After Solih defeated Nasheed in the party’s presidential primary, Nasheed established The Democrats, which has a candidate of its own.
