Stress test: 2025 Year in Review

As chronic shortages of essential medicines and US dollars persisted, a parliamentary supermajority rammed through constitutional amendments and controversial legislation, raising the spectre of one-party rule.

Here is a look back at the key events and themes that defined the year.

In February, 15 minutes before the Supreme Court was to hear a challenge to anti-defection amendments, the Judicial Service Commission suspended three justices. Justice Husnu Suood resigned in protest. The ruling party's supermajority impeached Justices Azmiralda Zahir and Mahaz Ali Zahir in May. The constitutional challenge was effectively derailed. International observers condemned what the UN Special Rapporteur called a violation of fair procedure. The purge continued with the removal of High Court judges and the appointment of former ruling party parliamentary candidates to the trial courts. 

When 21-year-old Hawwa Yumn was found critically injured after an unexplained fall in April, the initial police response sparked outrage. Young people gathered nightly, blocking Malé's main thoroughfare, forcing the resignation of the police chief, and demanding accountability from officials in the president's orbit. Police cracked down after a week and arrested the protest organisers. A commission later ruled out foul play. 

Aasandha price caps intended to curb profiteering broke the pharmaceutical supply chain. Wholesale prices exceeded retail caps. Importers owed millions could not restock. By June, only 40 percent of patients at the main STO pharmacy left with full prescriptions. The president blamed a "medical mafia" as families continued to post desperate pleas on social media, seeking people abroad to bring back life-saving pills.

In the face of protests and unprecedented expulsions from committee meetings, parliament passed what the Maldives Journalists Association dubbed the "media control law," creating a new regulator with sweeping powers to fine and shutter outlets. The journalists' union pledged civil disobedience and moved to form a self-regulatory body. 

When the government "verified" the previous administration's list of recipients for social housing, a majority of long-term residents of the congested capital were deemed ineligible. Complaints exceeded the 4,000 flats nearing completion. As the government and opposition traded accusations, the majority leader reignited the divisive debate over free land plots for native Malé residents. More than two years after assuming office, the current administration announced revised policies for awarding 22,900 plots and flats that currently exist only on paper.

In mid-2025, public debt hit US$ 9.6 billion – 124 percent of GDP. Despite mandatory dollar surrender from tourism operators and a bailout from India, the black market dollar rate climbed past MVR 20. The Bank of Maldives imposed a shopping fee that reflected the 30 percent premium.

The long-overdue new airport terminal opened, removing a key bottleneck for growth, but food inflation remained elevated and the central bank struggled to protect the Rufiyaa from devaluation. The World Bank reiterated warnings over the high risk of debt distress. Seventy cents of every dollar in next year's budget will go towards debt repayment.

The Maldives barred entry to Israeli passport holders. After 500 days of evading questions, President Dr Mohamed Muizzu defended his track record during a marathon press conference that lasted 15 hours. The Democrats crawled back to the MDP mothership.

Changes to the 2011 drug law introduced the death penalty for trafficking, and a new gang crimes law authorised warrantless searches and asset seizures.

A leaked report from the central bank's Financial Intelligence Unit implicated ruling party lawmakers in misappropriating inauguration funds. But the culture of impunity became further entrenched as a third administration failed to recover a single dollar from the unprecedented corruption scandal that cost the state an estimated US$ 220 million. A forensic report of data extracted from the phones of former Vice President Ahmed Adeeb – the chief architect of the embezzlement scheme – revealed a powerful tourism minister acting as a personal ATM for lawmakers, judges, soldiers, police officers, business elites, film stars and heads of independent institutions.

On October 3, when the MDP gathered supporters from across the country for its first major street protest, police prevented a march along Majeedhee Magu and deployed sonic weapons for the first time.

Most reclaimed land sat unused, but the environment minister bypassed ineffective safeguards to fast-track approval, even as a climate change tipping point was crossed for imperilled warm-water coral reefs.

Lifting a 15-year ban and ending the country's status as one of only 17 shark sanctuaries in the world, the government reopened the gulper shark fishery, defying conservation groups and a 27,000-signature petition to fulfil a campaign pledge to northern fishers.

Amid a thriving black market and sophisticated cigarette smuggling operations, the Maldives grabbed international headlines by becoming the first nation to prohibit tobacco sales to anyone born after January 1, 2007.

The country's third most populous island was left without water for more than 48 hours. Further south below the equator, Hulhudhoo and Meedhoo voted to split from the Addu City Council, and the decentralisation law was revamped to abolish atoll councils ahead of the country's fifth municipal elections next April.