President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on Wednesday instructed his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) to correct mistakes made in the first round of the presidential election and to pursue three key strategies for the second round.
Communicating better with voters
The president said at a campaign meeting in Addu that the MDP failed to properly communicate with voters ahead of the first round, including with party members.
“We weren’t able to reach voters, citizens, as much as we should have reached them. We weren’t even able to reach our members. There are many people who never got a phone call. There are many people we weren’t able to visit in their homes and meet,” he said.
The party did not do enough to get out the vote and failed to do other things such as taking exit polls, which would have to be improved to win in the second round, Solih said.
“One of the most important things we should pay attention to in the next two days is that,” he said.
Bringing back members who left MDP
The second strategy is seeking the support of former MDP members who have “stepped away” from the party, Solih said.
Despite not naming The Democrats, it was clear that the president was referring to the party formed by a breakaway MDP faction.
The Democrats was formed by loyalists of Speaker Mohamed Nasheed who left the MDP after the former president lost the party’s presidential primary to the incumbent.
Democrats presidential candidate, Ilyas Labeeb, finished third in the first round with more than 15,000 votes.
“We should work to try and bring back those among us who left temporarily,” Solih said.
Revealing the truth about opposition lies
The third task for the MDP to win the election is to reveal the truth to the public about lies told about the government by the opposition, the president said.
Efforts have been made to an extent over the past 16 days and it was important to continue the work over the next two days, he said.
“Claims about India, claims that we’ve sold the sea, and lots of other claims far from the truth and lots of lies are being spread. I believe Maldivians won’t believe it depending on how much we’re able to reveal the truth. The public will believe that they’re lying,” Solih said.
