Former Presidents Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and Mohamed Nasheed have engaged in a Twitter feud over the 2007 constitutional referendum in which the public overwhelmingly chose a presidential system.
Maumoon initiated the online spar by tweeting that a presidential system most suited the social and economic situation of the country and that in the 2007 referendum the country supported such a compatibility.
Moments later, former President Mohamed Nasheed attacked President Maumoon via twitter by saying that the former had never won an election on his own merit.
Nasheed accused Maumoon of voter fraud in the 2007 constitutional referendum and alluded that the only election in which Maumoon could not commit fraud was the 2008 presidential elections which Nasheed won.
Maumoon counterattacked by saying that he felt saddened that former President Nasheed would consider the people of Maldives to be foolish. He questioned why his regime would commit voter fraud for 30 years and not do the same for the 2008 Presidential election. He called on Nasheed to make better rebuttals.
There have been talks of reversing the 2007 referendum in favor of a Parliamentary system and former President and current Speaker of the Parliament Mohamed Nasheed has been at the forefront of the debate.
In 2007, 78 percent of the registered voters took part in the constitutional referendum that saw 62 percent vote for a presidential system while 37.9 percent voted for a parliamentary system.
