Former Maldives leader Nasheed eyes return to office in 2028

Former Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed said on Wednesday that he is considering returning to office in 2028.

Nasheed, 58, announced his intention in a message he sent to several members of his inner circle in the morning.

A close aide told Sun that it is “highly likely” to see Nasheed in the 2028 presidential race. However, the former president has not shared how he intends to contest the election, as an independent, or on behalf of a political party.

“I am considering contesting. What do you think? Whatever response you give will not affect out relationship,” wrote Nasheed, in the message he sent.

Several people who are close to him told Sun that Nasheed was considering returning to office due to “the current situation in the country.”

Nasheed, one of the founding members of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), held office from 2008 until his resignation in 2012, a decision that he later said he was forced to make due to a coup by the security forces.

Nasheed made an unsuccessful attempt to return to office with the 2013 election. In 2015, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison for terrorism – a conviction that was later overturned, but not before it ruled him out of contention in the 2018 election.

In 2016, Nasheed was given asylum in the United Kingdom, where he had gone for medical treatment after being granted a furlough from prison.

He returned to the Maldives in 2018, after Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, his childhood friend who he backed as MDP’s presidential candidate, won the election.

In 2019, Nasheed won the seat for the Central Mahchangolhi constituency in parliamentary elections in 2019, and subsequently took office as the Speaker of Parliament.

In May 2021, Nasheed barely survived an assassination attempt in which an IED was detonated near his home. He was flown overseas for medical treatment, and did not return until five months later, in October 2021.

But as it drew closer to the 2023 presidential election, tensions arose between him and Solih, both of whom eyed the MDP’s ticket for the election. The rivalry between them created a rift within the MDP, culminating into Nasheed and those loyal to him leaving the party in June 2023, to form a new party, the Democrats.

This rift is widely believed to be one of the main reasons for MDP’s defeat in the 2023 presidential election.

In November 2023, Nasheed resigned as Speaker of the Parliament in face of a no-confidence vote, and announced the next month that he was taking “a respite from active politics” to assume a new post in Ghana as the secretary general of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF).

But in January this year, Nasheed said that he hasn’t completely moved away from politics despite his new role, and in April, he urged the MDP and Democrats to work together, saying that he believes that to be in the best interest of the country, as well as the two parties.