Yameen lashes out at opposition after election loss
The ruling coalition should learn lessons from the loss in the May 6 local council elections, Yameen said, but contended that an “alternative narrative” could be told about the results.
16 May 2017, 9:00 AM
President Abdulla Yameen lashed out at opposition leaders Monday night in his first public appearance since the ruling coalition’s loss in the May 6 local council election.
“Why should you stay in hiding abroad? Those who thirst for power here should come back to the Maldives. The first thing you should accept is that court verdicts will be binding on everyone,” Yameen said in a fiery speech at the coalition’s meeting hall in Malé.
“It won’t do when you criticise these things from afar. Our opponents now, they are also opposed to each other. We can see what they have said about each other. But now none of them is in a state where they can provide protection for the other. All of them have collectively gone into self-imposed exile.”
The opposition leaders cannot work together because of their adversarial history and desire to seek the presidency, he said, criticising the unlikely partnership between former Presidents Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and Mohamed Nasheed.
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