A winning strategy for losing an election

The Elections Commission of Maldives has wrapped up the official counts for the vacant North Hithadhoo constituency by-election, confirming that the main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party’s (MDP) candidate, Abdulla Sodiq officially walked away with the seat.

However, watching the main ruling People's National Congress (PNC) try to process this loss is nothing short of bewildering and deeply concerning, as they seem entirely incapable of admitting they got beat.

It is a true marvel of modern political theater to watch an administration stare directly at an explicit electoral defeat and boldly call it a victory. The public statements coming from the Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sports and Fitness Abdulla Rafiu, serve as a prime example of just how disconnected from reality this government has become.

Surgeon declares success while the patient expires

Even when the initial provisional numbers made it clear that they had lost, Minister Rafiu, who pulled double duty as the campaign manager, casually shrugged it off by saying he was happy with how hard they tried and labeled the whole disaster a major achievement.

This bizarre alternate reality was pushed even harder during a political rally on Tuesday night, long after the final official counts nailed down Sodiq's actual triumph.

The absolute certainty and swagger with which the Minister insisted PNC won a race they clearly lost is jaw-dropping, playing out exactly like a medical team celebrating a successful surgery while their patient lies dead on the table.

In any system that calls itself a functioning democracy, the decent thing to do is take the loss on the chin and show some respect for what the voters decided. Trying to dress up a failure by mangling the facts is a direct insult to the public.

Instead of actually sitting down to figure out why they lost and doing the hard work to change, the administration's obsessive spinning has only managed to make the public despise them even more.

Scoring own goals in the sports arena

If you thought Minister Rafiu’s political spin-doctoring was bad, his total cluelessness regarding the country's national football team is even more painful.

As the top official running sports in the country, his complete failure to keep tabs on the condition and recent hardships of the national squad, a team that carries the country's collective pride, makes you wonder if he is even qualified to hold the job. It is honestly terrifying that the person in charge of sports seems completely oblivious to the fact that the national team has just suffered three back-to-back losses.

All over the world, sports ministers actually bother to keep an eye on how their national teams are performing, how athletes are being treated and whether sports associations are running smoothly. Meanwhile, the Maldivian Sports Minister seems way too busy protecting his political rank and serving up government spin to actually bother doing his real job.

Time for a ministerial rebrand

It is pretty clear that Minister Rafiu has completely forgotten what he was hired to do in the first place.

Considering how much this current administration loves constantly shifting around government mandates and playing mad scientist with ministerial portfolios, it might just make sense to officially add Campaign Management to the name of his ministry. If they actually went ahead and did it, nobody in the public would even blink.

The citizens of this country do not need a glorified campaign manager who tries to convince them that a loss is actually a win.

What the people actually need is a mature, responsible Minister who knows exactly what kind of shape our national youth and sports teams are in and who is actually committed to doing the work he is paid to do.