Namely, Yameen himself came to office by defeating former president Mohamed Nasheed, who was running for a second non-consecutive term in 2013, after having resigned in 2012 during the 2011–12 Maldives political crisis.

Nasheed's successor in office, his Vice President Mohammed Waheed Hassan also sought re-election in 2013, but decided not to contest the re-run after the initial election was annulled.

[6] However, in June 2018 the party and its coalition, the Maldives United Opposition, selected Ibrahim Mohamed Solih as its candidate after Nasheed withdrew his candidacy.

[5][7] President Abdulla Yameen ran on a campaign of economic development and Islamism aimed at "courting religious vote",[8] claiming that the opposition was supported by Christian priests.

[9] Prior to the elections, there were concerns about vote rigging by the government as Yameen had appointed one of his supporters, Ahmed Shareef, as head of the Electoral Commission.

[14] President Yameen had previously restricted observers from seeing individual ballots, and had appointed 107 members of the ruling PPM party to administer and count the vote.

[11] Source: Maldives Electoral Commission[16] Following the announcement of the results, Yameen challenged the outcome in the Supreme Court in October, claiming that the election had been rigged.

[21] According to The Nikkei, India's Modi administration had "spared no expense supporting local opposition parties by allotting tens of millions of dollars to intelligence agencies".

[20] Following the declaration of election results, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Ibrahim Mohamed Solih to congratulate him on his victory.