Week in review: August 24-30

The week began with stormy seas across the Maldives – two boats were sunk around Male’ and a typhoon reported in Shaviyani Atoll. Maldivian bodyboarders competing in Australia found conditions far easier, however, impressing judges and winning prizes in the Jeff Wilcox Memorial. The PPM also enjoyed smooth sailing, winning the Nolhivaram island council by-election and predicting an easy ride to the presidency, barring “major incidents” on polling day.

The PPM were soon headed back into the choppy waters of the presidential election campaign. After repeated criticism of the Elections Commission (EC), one party member took it upon himself to file a case in the Supreme Court requesting an audit of the EC’s IT software, and a greater role for the military in the upcoming poll. EC commissioner Fuwad Thowfeek had previously given Minivan News a comprehensive analysis of how polling would occur on election day.

Insisting that the senior party official had filed the case in a personal capacity, the official business of the PPM campaign continued in the atolls, with candidate Abdulla Yameen asking the people of Kudahuvadhoo the value of development without peace. The head of the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) this week described state spending as “beyond appropriate”, despite having cancelled all state financed development earlier this year. Yameen’s comments were likely prompted by the Maldivian Democratic Party’s (MDP) unveiling of a detailed manifesto involving 137 development projects, with more than half focused on giving city status to Fuvahmulah – the country’s only one-island atoll.