Maldives ruling party holds high-stakes presidential primary

Al Jazeera :
The Maldives’s governing party is set to hold a primary that is pitting incumbent President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih against his former ally and the nation’s first democratically-elected leader, Mohamed Nasheed.
The closely fought election on Saturday follows a bitter campaign, with Nasheed framing the poll as a choice between autocracy and democracy, and accusing Solih of vote rigging and bribery – allegations he denies.
Enmity between the two has raised concerns of new turmoil in the popular Indian Ocean tourist destination, four years after Maldivians voted out former President Abdulla Yameen, who had overseen a wide-ranging crackdown on dissent, including by jailing or forcing into exile nearly all of his political rivals, arresting Supreme Court judges, and shuttering critical and independent media.
Some also fear the vote could split the governing Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) ahead of September’s presidential election, as Nasheed has yet to state – even when pushed by reporters – whether he would back Solih if he were to lose.
“The Maldives has never seen a more contentious primary,” wrote Fazeena Ahmed, editor at Mihaaru, a prominent news site. “Both Nasheed and Solih’s campaign teams have crossed the red line,” she said.
Mudslinging and relentless insults mean “the two sides are now at a point where it is unclear if they will be able to unite and work together for the upcoming presidential election”, Ahmed added.
The question on everyone’s mind, she wrote, “is what will happen to MDP after this primary”.
Considered an icon of democracy for his lifelong campaign for multiparty politics in the Maldives, Nasheed, 55, has seen his political star wane since Solih, 60, assumed the presidency in 2018. The bitter rivalry between the childhood friends, who are also related by marriage, began earlier that year when the MDP’s top decision-making body decided to transfer the party’s presidential ticket from Nasheed to Solih. At the time, party officials feared the MDP would be left without a presidential candidate as Nasheed was being prevented from contesting the election because of a trumped-up “terrorism” conviction.
Living in exile at the time and left with little choice, Nasheed, who had previously served as president from 2008-2012, acquiesced to Solih’s candidacy.
And Solih – backed by the MDP as well as a coalition of disparate opposition parties – went on to defeat Yameen by a landslide.