President Abdulla Yameen gives no thought for compassion, says Jumhooree Party (JP) leader Qasim Ibrahim.

The self-exiled opposition leader said this at a ceremony held on Tuesday to officially give Faisal Naseem the ticket for being picked as the opposition coalition’s running mate.

Speaking via video conference, he said: “I don’t even want to say ‘President Yameen’, he has done many wicked things.”

Qasim said that the people who had done the most to get President Yameen elected has become the most oppressed, and that their families and property have also been targeted.

Former Vice President Ahmed Adeeb has recently claimed that President Abdulla Yameen had kept the US dollars received by MMPRC inside a small room in his house, in order to personally exchange it do Maldivian currency.

Regarding this, Qasim said that he is shocked that there is no one willing to investigate the claim. He said that independent institutions have become ineffective and that now only the Maldivian National Defense Force can stabilize the country.

He also said that courts are imprisoning whoever they wish and that while he acknowledged that the judges are doing it out of fear of losing their jobs and being unable to provide for their families, Qasim asks ‘what spell’ they are under.

Qasim said that more than 80 percent of Maldivian citizens support the opposition coalition parties and so the government wants to commit fraud during re-registration of voters, which he said was the only way that President Yameen could win September’s presidential election.

Claiming that President Yameen got into the parliament twice without any elections by paying off his rivals, Qasim called on the President to ‘courageously’ contest and win the upcoming election.