Nasheed questions coherence of government’s financial decisions at Congress

The interim government has no clear financial direction or economic scale to move the Maldives forward, MDP Chairperson and former President Mohamed Nasheed said on Thursday evening, speaking at the opening of the MDP Congress.

Criticising recent changes to fiscal and monetary policy, Nasheed said the government’s decisions show a lack of coherence and economic planning. “The concern of this Congress stops at the fact that this government has no balance and direction on how to run the economy today. One day it says exchange USD 500 per tourist, the next day it changes it to 20 percent, then to 40 percent, and now foreign tour operators also have to register to pay GST,” he said.

He argued that these measures reflect policy inconsistency and an absence of economic modelling, describing them as “failed policies” that are not being implemented in practice. Nasheed said the government was “playing pretend” with scattered decisions that lack scale, structure and long-term planning, warning that the Maldives was heading towards “falling into a pit” if such policies continued.

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— MDP Secretariat (@MDPSecretariat) October 1, 2026

He said the MDP would not allow the country to go down that route. “We will change President [Dr Mohamed] Muizzu, we will bring good governance to the people of this country, we will change this government,” Nasheed said.

Nasheed also accused the government of lying, cheating and deceiving, and of having no debt-repayment strategy. He said the administration had “no intention of doing anything for the people.”

“We will not stay still. We will come out. We will hopefully change this country again,” he said.

Nasheed has recently launched the “Bodu Badhalu” movement to push for reforms in the state system and party governance. He has also announced his support for former party chairman Fayyaz Ismail, who is leading the movement alongside him.