Early life & education
Ahmed Haitham was born on 17 September 1980 in Malé. His mother, Aishath Ahmed, worked for 46 years in the administration of the Communication Authority of the Maldives. In July 2023 she received the President's National Service Award.
He went to Jamaluddin School and Iskandhar School, then Majeediyya School, where he completed his G.C.E. Ordinary Level (University of London) in 1997.
He went on to earn a series of professional qualifications in network security and cybersecurity:
- CISSP
- CISM
- CISA
- Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
- CompTIA Security+
- Cisco CCNA
He later studied beyond technology too. In 2015 he earned a Diploma in Nutrition, Wellness & Health from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and became a licensed health coach. In March 2023 he completed a Program Diploma in Global Governance at the International Business Management Institute.
Career
Haitham began working in 1998 as a visa officer, then worked in human resources at the Maldives Ports Authority from 1999 to 2000. He moved into information technology as a technician at Infotech (2002–2003) and became operations manager at Island Computers (2003–2004).
From 2004 to 2017 he held a series of technical roles: computer technician at Focus Computers, computer engineer at Sinnaps, ICT engineer at Pan Ocean and ICT manager at Shinetree.
He was also an entrepreneur. He served as managing director of two technology companies, Antimatter Pvt Ltd and Createch Pvt Ltd, and founded Celestial Pvt Ltd, which supplied swimming-pool chemicals to resorts across the Maldives. He owned a gym in Malé and worked as a fitness instructor and health coach.
Journalism
Haitham worked as a photojournalist for Minivan Daily, a publication known for its critical coverage of political and social affairs. In 2012 he covered politically sensitive events in Malé during a period of intense pressure on the Maldivian press.
On the night of 11 July 2012, he was reportedly assaulted by police while covering a protest. Several other journalists were also targeted that night, part of a wider pattern of harassment, arrests and violence against reporters documented by international press-freedom organisations.
Election to the Majlis
He won the Maldivian Democratic Party primary for South Machangoalhi on 19 January 2019. In the parliamentary election of 6 April 2019 he took the seat with 933 votes (43.2%), defeating the sitting MP, Abdulla Sinan. The MDP won 65 of 87 seats, the first time a single party had secured a supermajority in the People's Majlis.
The campaign was not easy. His booth was vandalised, banners were torn down, campaign motorbikes were set alight, and he received death threats demanding that he withdraw. He stayed in the race.
He took his oath on 28 May 2019. On 2 July 2019 he was elected a whip of the MDP parliamentary group.
In Parliament
Haitham sat on the Foreign Relations Committee and the National Security Services Committee, and was Vice Chair of the Environment and Climate Change Committee. He chaired subcommittees on the Energy Bill and on post-legislative scrutiny of the Climate Emergency Act. He also served on the subcommittee examining Mauritius's case against the Maldives at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea over the Chagos Archipelago.
His best-known work was scrutiny. He pressed the government on undocumented migrant workers and led the questioning that opened the COVID-19 ventilator procurement inquiry. He also pursued a series of resolutions and petitions on child protection, emergency health care, drug rehabilitation and tourism jobs for Maldivians.
Explore the parliamentary record
Party affiliation
Haitham campaigned door to door for President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih in the first round of the 2023 presidential election. Before the run-off, on 26 September 2023, he resigned from the MDP in a letter to party chairperson Fayyaz Ismail.
In the letter he said the party had departed from its values. He also said he had not received the leadership's support on the issues he had raised in Parliament: undocumented workers, the ventilator procurement, reform of the National Drug Agency, and delays in health care that endangered lives.
After a period as an independent, he was one of 13 MPs who joined the People's National Congress on 28 December 2023. They handed their membership forms to President Mohamed Muizzu at a ceremony at Dharubaaruge.
International work
On 17 December 2023 Haitham became the first Country Treasurer of the Maldives chapter of the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption (GOPAC), serving until July 2024. In 2023 he also organised a food and blanket appeal in the Maldives for survivors of the earthquake in Türkiye.
Personal life
Haitham married Shajaan Muaz Shaheem on 15 October 2020. She is a social and environmental governance advocate, founder and board chair of Resilience Maldives, and co-founder of the Feline Welfare Organization. The couple met in 2020 during online tourism-sector meetings held to prepare for the reopening of the Maldives to visitors.
In September 2020 the couple founded the Organization for Advocating Travel and Tourism Employees' Rights. Their twins were born prematurely in August 2021, and the family has six children.
Threats & safety
Haitham has faced repeated threats over his public life. These included death threats during the 2019 campaign and a street confrontation in Malé in June 2021, while his wife was pregnant, which led to a criminal prosecution.
In August 2024, after his term ended, his car was destroyed by an explosion at a garage in Sri Lanka, weeks after a bus collided with it on the road between Galle and Colombo. Haitham has described it as a deliberate attack. No investigation findings have been published.
Sources for this biography, including news reports and parliamentary records, are preserved in the Press Archive.