Parliament Speaker Mohamed Nasheed has said that there are now two factions in Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) and called on the party's chairman Fayyaz Ismail to find a way to move forward with the two factions.
In an exclusive interview with Dhvehi Channel last night, Nasheed said that there are situations even in other countries where major parties are divided. In such cases, forming separate factions should not be opposed, he said.
After Nsheed's failure of MDP's presidential primary, he is working on forming separate branches under the name “Fikurrehge Dhirun”, which translates to "reviving an ideology". He said he would try to reach 50,000 endorsements under the branches and determine a candidate to be supported by MDP.
Every party will face different challenges and the MDP is facing a similar situation, he said.
The MDP primary elections had been fierce and the party was divided into two factions; one supporting Nasheed and one supporting President Solih.
Nasheed said he researches and thinks "theoretically" about other political parties and what is happening in the global political scene. Therefore, he cited an example of what had happened in the global political scene similar to the situation faced by the MDP.
"For example, the Congress Party in India is divided; or what has happened to UNP in Ceylon. The Tories are also holding out like this [even though divided]. The Labor Party in the UK has split twice," Nasheed said.
"So there is a tendency, for political parties to split. We are aware of that," Nasheed said.
The parties continued on by providing the opportunity to create factions, he said.
Nasheed earlier said he would not leave MDP and form his own party.
"I will not form another party. I have participated and worked to form MDP," Nasheed said.
The MDP presidential primary elections held last Saturday, was won by President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih. The President received 61 percent of the vote in the primary, while Nasheed received 39 percent.
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