President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih said on Monday that the reasons for facing defeat in the first round of the presidential election have been identified, assuring corrective measures and changes to the campaign in order to win the second round.
The president met with Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) national council members this afternoon. In an exclusive interview with Adhadhu after the meeting, Solih said discussions took place and decisions were made on restarting the campaign.
"We're doing the work of resolving the issues in the first round after identifying them. After more meetings in the late afternoon, we will go ahead fully after that. We know very clearly the mistakes that we made and what needs to be corrected," he said.
The president would need more than 15,000 votes in the second round to close the gap between frontrunner Dr. Mohamed Muizzu, the candidate of the Progressive Party of Maldives-People's National Congress (PPM-PNC). The result can be improved with the work now underway, the president said.
"We didn't work enough. There were issues with the organization. We're talking to resolve that."
One of the mistakes was delegating too much in assigning constituencies, Solih said.
"Atolls and islands were assigned separately to various individuals. I feel we have worked as much as we could have in a campaign so far. But when it came to the end, in the last two days, some things fell aside," he said.
Solih won 39 percent in the first round with 86,151 votes. PNC candidate Muizzu was in the top spot with 46 percent or 101,613 votes.
The Democrats candidate Ilyas Labeeb finished third with 15,528 votes or seven percent, followed by Umar Naseer at 2.8 percent and Jumhooree Party leader Qasim Ibrahim with 2.4 percent.
In a phone interview with Raajje TV on Monday morning, Solih said the low turnout and the failure to get out MDP voters were the main problems.
"In all constituencies, a lot of people among those who decided to vote for us did not vote. We couldn't get them out because of a bit of carelessness in some administrative arrangements that needed to be made," he said.
On some islands, 300 to 400 MDP voters stayed home, which would be looked into to strengthen administrative matters, the president said.
The 79 percent turnout on Saturday was a record low for a presidential election. Some 56,949 people did not vote in the first round.
The other main challenge for the campaign was the failure to respond to lies spread by the opposition, Solih said, promising full disclosures and more effort to convince voters.
He was referring to claims made during the opposition's 'India Out' campaign such as the Maldives becoming an Indian state if Solih is re-elected. Such claims were repeated and spread enough for the public to believe them, he added.
"God willing, in this round we will disclose everything that we can to the public. [They will see] that those were lies and that we have not done anything that could cause the loss of the country's independence or part of territory," he said.
Solih also said that he has received signals of support from other parties after talks yesterday.
"That is the work up next. God willing, we believe that two or three parties will go forward with us," he said.
