Maldives’ opposition presidential candidate claims victory

MALE, Maldives (AP) — 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 Yameen Abdul Gayoom, whose first term was marked by a crackdown on political rivals, courts and the media.

Supporters draped in the Maldivian flag flooded the streets, hugging one another, cheering and honking horns to celebrate Solih’s victory. He had 58.3 percent of the vote, with nearly 97.5 percent of ballots counted just after midnight Monday, according to independent newspaper website mihaaru.com. Election watchdog Transparency Maldives tweeted that Solih had won “by a decisive margin.”

Yameen’s campaign did not concede the race, and no one from the campaign could immediately be reached for comment.

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

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

“I would like to tell President Yameen, the people have spoken so please accept defeat,” Solih said, adding that he had spoken to Maldivian police, who were “with the people” and had accepted the result.

in his victory speech, Solih, among the founders of the main opposition party, the Maldivian Democratic Party, called the election results “a moment of happiness, hope and history,” adding that he did not think the election process had been transparent.

A police raid on Solih’s main campaign office the night before the election was seen by the opposition as a worrying sign that Yameen would “muzzle his way” to re-election, according to Hamid Abdul Gafoor, an opposition spokesman and former Maldives lawmaker now based in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Famed for its sandy white beaches and luxury resorts, the Maldives under Yameen have 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.

Few foreign media organizations were allowed in to cover the election, and there had been warnings that the Maldives were slipping back to autocratic rule, just a decade after achieving democracy.

Yameen used his first term to consolidate power, jailing opponents, including his half brother, a former president, and two Supreme Court Justices.

In February, Yameen declared a state of emergency, suspended the constitution and ordered troops to storm the Supreme Court and arrest judges and other rivals to stave off impeachment.

The European Union had said that it was not sending election observers because the Maldives had failed to meet the basic conditions for monitoring. The U.S. had threatened to sanction Maldivian officials if the elections were not free and fair.

Opposition supporters in the Maldives and in neighboring Sri Lanka, where former President Mohamed Nasheed lives in exile, decried Saturday’s raid as a naked attempt to rig the vote in favor of Yameen.

Despite the turmoil, voters flocked to the polls on Sunday, standing in long lines in rain and high temperatures to cast ballots.

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 comprise 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.