The current government has placed many obstacles in the way of decentralizing power in the Maldives, said former President Mohamed Nasheed.

At the campaign rally for the local council elections on Friday, Nasheed spoke through a video call and said that decentralization of power in the Maldives is deteriorating and that local councils need to be empowered.

Nasheed, whose administration had introduced the act along with Maldives’ 2008 constitution, said that local government institutions need to restored to the position they were originally meant to be in.

In this regard, he said that local councils are rightfully tasked with their jurisdictions and forms irreplaceable component in the democratic society’s balancing of authority.