Opposition Jumhooree Party (JP) leader Qasim Ibrahim has reassured his commitment to the opposition effort and pledged his perseverance despite any pressure or even the threat of imprisonment. 

JP’s leader said this at Kunooz, the party’s primary rally site, adding that that neither he nor the leaders of the three other parties aligned with the opposition cause, would support President Abdulla Yameen in the next elections. 

“We have said it before, and we will say it again – we will not back down, no matter how much Yameen wants us to” Ibrahim said at the rally, representing his three coalition partners – the Maldivian Democratic Party, the Adhaalath Party, and one faction of the divided Progressive Party of Maldives. 

He said that the reform efforts began, not because the leaders wanted it, but because the parties’ general members desire changes in economic and social policies, and the ‘corruption of the government to end’.

Further, Ibrahim said that the government’s economic policy currently revolves around acquiring large loans and that it ‘cheats’ the Maldivian people by giving away important projects for large prices to those acquainted with it. 

In his presidential address, President Abdulla Yameen said that his government borrowed MVR 4.79 billion, to fund its development projects.

Ibrahim himself is facing pressure as the state has frozen accounts belonging to Villa Group, founded and operated by him. On Tuesday, he told the press that the freeze is ‘absurd’ as he has already paid USD 4.6 million of the payment, which was previously scheduled to only start at the end of 2018. 

Further, the police has also pushed bribery allegations him for prosecution.