Siyam: Will “work very hard” to elect Muizzu

Maldives Development Alliance (MDA)’s leader, Meedhoo MP Ahmed Siyam Mohamed, underscoring MDA to be a party that will work to honor its agreements to its best capacity, has pledged to “work very hard” to election opposition coalition’s presidential candidate Dr. Mohamed Muizzu.

MDA’s National Council decided to withdraw support for President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih and break the coalition with main ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) in order to support Muizzu, the presidential candidate of the opposition coalition comprising of Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) and People’s National Congress (PNC), in the runoff scheduled for Saturday on Tuesday night.

Speaking to the press after the national council, Siyam pledged to undertake comprehensive efforts to ensure Muizzu’s election.

“As you may know, we are people who will work very hard to achieve something if we have agreed on that particular thing,” he added.

Siyam, underscoring discussions are always ongoing among political parties, stressed discussions have also been continuously held between MDA and the opposition coalition.

Three proposals were put forth during MDA’s National Council meeting on Tuesday night; to reaffirm support for President Solih for the runoff, to support Muizzu in the runoff and to support neither candidate.

Two members of the council voted in favor of supporting neither candidate, another two had voted in favor of reaffirming support for President Solih while 33 members voted in favor of supporting Muizzu.

MDA said they decided to back Muizzu in the second round in order to respect the decision of the public – citing the opposition candidate had won the first round with a landslide difference of 15,000 votes. They attributed the difference in votes to a clear decision by the people, adding the party could only serve the nation by backing Muizzu.