Maldives’ opposition presidential candidate claims victory

Opposition presidential candidate Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, a longtime but little-known lawmaker in the Maldives, declared victory early Monday in a contentious election widely seen as a referendum on the island nation’s young democracy.

Solih’s win, announced at his party’s campaign headquarters in the capital city of Male, was unexpected. The opposition had feared the election would be rigged in favor of strongman President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom, whose first term was marked by a crackdown on political rivals, courts and the media.

“People were not expecting this result. Despite the repressive environment, the people have spoken their minds,” said Ahmed Tholal, a former member of the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives and a project coordinator at the nonprofit watchdog Transparency Maldives.

A democracy activist during the Maldives’ decades of autocratic rule and former parliament majority leader, Solih, 56, became the Maldivian Democratic Party’s presidential candidate by process of elimination — other opposition leaders had been jailed or exiled by Yameen’s government.

Party leader and former President Mohamed Nasheed, in exile in Sri Lanka, had hoped to run again but was disqualified because of an outstanding prison sentence in the Maldives.

Famed for its sandy white beaches and luxury resorts, the Maldives under Yameen has seen economic growth and longer life expectancy, according to the World Bank. But Yameen’s critics, including Solih, said he systematically rolled back democratic freedoms.

Solih campaigned door to door, promising at rallies to promote human rights and the rule of law, a message that resonated with voters who saw signs the Maldives was slipping back to autocratic rule, just a decade after achieving democracy.

“Ibu is totally different from Yameen, because Yameen is a dictator and a brutal person. Ibu is a very mild person who listens to everyone,” said Ahamed Fiasal, a 39-year-old IT business owner, using Solih’s nickname.

Still, Fiasal said, the result was surprising because “no one thought that Yameen would lose like this. He had all the power — the judiciary, the police, the security forces under him. It seemed he might rig the election even at the last minute and would win somehow or the other.”

Solih’s supporters flooded the streets, hugging one another, waving the Maldivian flag, cheering and honking horns in celebration.

Yameen’s campaign did not concede the race, and no one from the campaign could immediately be reached for comment. But Solih had 58.3% of the vote with nearly 97.5% of ballots counted early Monday, according to independent newspaper website mihaaru.com.

A spokesman for Maldives’ Election Commission said official results would not be announced until Saturday, allowing a week for parties to challenge the results in court.

Solih, surrounded by thousands of his supporters, urged calm until the commission had announced the results.

In his victory speech, Solih called the election results “a moment of happiness, hope and history,” but said that he did not think the election process had been transparent.

More than 260,000 of the Maldives’ 400,000 people were eligible to vote at about 400 polling stations across the approximately 1,200 islands that make up the Indian Ocean archipelago. Voters also stood in long lines in Malaysia, the U.K., India and Sri Lanka, where the opposition had encouraged overseas Maldivians to participate.