Links between DhiFM and New Maldives

After a rigged opinion poll conducted by the DhiFM radio channel, people are wondering why DhiFM would go to such low levels to promote Dr Hassan Saeed. DhiFM initially tried to cover up their role in rigging the poll, but supporters of Ibra bombarded the DhiFM office, and DhiFM was forced to show the sms logs. Sources say it was Ibra and Anni who led in the sms poll, and Dr Hassan Saeed was trailing far behind, as Minivan News reports.

“The results are totally invalid,” says Liberal Party spokesperson Hassan Latheef, who had met with Khaleel early Saturday morning and saw the raw data from the poll.

“I would say from every 10 texts, 5 or 6 were for Anni and Ibra. Hassan Saeed appeared from time to time,” Hassan said.

Hassan and the other Liberal party supporters were briefly shown statistics of the results from the website of telecommunications company Dhiraagu.

Station CEO Ibrahim Khaleel apologised, saying: “When we re-checked the results, the poll was false. This was due to technical issues.”

He said some text messages had not been downloaded from the Dhiraagu server, and therefore had not been counted.

“I was also surprised by the results, based on what I was hearing and things that were happening in the city,” he says.

But Khaleel says he does not know whether the order of winners would change, as DhiFM has not carried out a recount, and has no plans to do so.

He also declined to reveal the total number of messages that had not been counted.

Dhi FM has been issuing an apology since 3:30am Saturday, and Khaleel says, “In the future, we will ensure this does not happen again.”

DhiFM is trying to cover up the fiasco by blaming Dhiraagu. But DhiFM's CEO Hoarafushi Ibrahim Khaleel's connections with New Maldives is not new. Khaleel is related by marriage to Dr Ahmed Shaheed, one of the Amar-Akbar-Anthony trio that makes the New Maldives. Shortly after Mohamed Nasheed became Minister of Information, and therefore the head of Television Maldives (TVM), problems started between Khaleel, who was then a senior staff of TVM, and Nasheed. To salvage Khaleel, Dr Shaheed brought him to Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the post of Assistant Executive Director.

Anybody who knows the background of Ibrahim Khaleel knows that, though he has some experience as a reporter in Haveeru, and as a producer and presenter at TVM, he has no academic qualifications or experience to be in the foreign service. This is just one example of how the so-called reformist New Maldives ministers practiced cronyism and nepotism while they were in cabinet. Their policy was make hay while the sun shines. Today, Dr Hassan Saeed is accusing Gayoom of nepotism but the truth is even Dr Saeed practiced favouritism when he was the Attorney General.

To cut a long story short, Ibrahim Khaleel rarely showed up to work at Foreign Ministry, though he was an Assistant Executive Director, a job given by Foreign Minister Shaheed himself. Khaleel was by then busy setting up his DhiFM and DhiTV business in partnership with Soatu Champa.

When we scrutinise the DhiFM station, we see more links between DhiFM and New Maldives. Ameen, who works as a presenter and journalist at DhiFM, is also a spokesperson for the New Maldives. He represents New Maldives in several political functions. He is an active member of Dr Saeed's campaign.

Now that you know the links between DhiFM and New Maldives, you will not be surprised by the margin in the rigged poll which gave Dr Hassan Saeed such a huge lead.

Hoarafushi Ibrahim Khaleel also maintains very close links with the old tyrant Gayoom. At TVM, he gave special coverages to Gayoom, and Khaleel was a long time presenter of Heyyanbo, the Friday afternoon programme to which Gayoom sends riddles and words of wisdom. The long time producer of the Heyyanbo programme, Hassan Maumoon (Maanu), is also a partner of DhiFM and DhiTV now. Maanu was TVM's special cameraman for Gayoom for years. It is no secret that the best camera crew in TVM are assigned to functions Gayoom attends, so that good quality pictures of him are broadcast nationwide as part of the propaganda.

Ibrahim Khaleel once told a weekly in Maldives that his favourite person was Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and that his most desired wish was to get a housing plot from Male'.

It is pathetic that despite the media freedom Maldivians are enjoying today, the radio and TV stations are just used as mere tools of propaganda and not for objective journalism.