Defense minister Maria Ahmed Didi has played the “woman card” as a shield against accountability and public’s criticism for failing to provide adequate security and protection for incumbent President Mohamed Solih.

The president was on his way back from a ceremony held to celebrate International Women’s day when his motorcade was stopped by opposition protestors in the vicinity of PPM’s office.

A lot of criticism has been directed at the Defense Ministry as well as Maria and an emergency motion was submitted to the Parliament by the opposition to fire Maria from her position.

Maria addressed the issue in a tweet today in a manner which implied that the male ministers of Maldives are not held accountable for issues that occur in their ministry and does not face similar criticisms.

“If an operation in IGMH goes bad no one blames the Health Minister. If the police goof up, no one blames the Home Minister. But, even at an operational/tactical level, something happens at MNDF, Defense Minister, who happens to be a woman is to blame and it’s “Celebrate women” Month!” Maria stated in her tweet.

Despite Maria using this card as a defense there has been several incidents where male ministers had also faced similar criticism and was asked to resign to take responsibility for their actions.

For instance, during the Covid pandemic, due to issues with IGMH ventilators, an issue was submitted to People’s Parliament to take a no-confidence vote against then active health minister, Amin and he had resigned from his post.

In addition, in the cases of the murder of religious scholar Dr. Afrashim Ali and disappearance of journalist Ahmed Rilwaan, current Home Minister Imran came under fire for suspicions of lying about having evidence for these cases.

He was also under heavy criticism for speaking lightly of the incident of a Kenyan woman getting raped in a safari docked in Hulhumale. An issue was submitted to the Parliament to take a no-confidence vote.