President of the Elections Commission (EC), Fuad Thaufeeq has said regulation under which political parties operate in the Maldives is too vague, when it comes to their requirements of party activity and membership.
Thaufeeq told Minivan News that the commission has drafted and submitted a bill dictating the operation of political parties in the Maldives.
Thaufeeq highlighted loopholes in the existing regulation on political parties, originally introduced by presidential decree by former president Maumoon Abdul Gayyoom in 2005.
The largest party in the Maldives is the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) of former President Mohamed Nasheed, following an acrimonious split of the Dhivehi Rayithunge Party (DRP) in late 2010 and the formation of an offshoot party, the Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM), by Gayoom the following year.
DRP remains the second largest party in the country, and has competed for members with the PPM. The remaining parties in the Maldives are relatively small, have little representation in parliament, and relatively small based around usually one particular political figure. An exception is the religiously conservative Adhaalath Party, which has no MPs and few island councillors, but has a strong voice through the Islamic scholars who make up its membership.
Parties require 3000 members to be created, but this number does not need to be maintained: “There is no stipulation in the regulation highlighting the requirement of 3000 members,” said Thaufeeq.
“The regulations are very vague, because you require 3000 members to form a political party but after formation what happens with smaller parties is that the membership drops tremendously,” he explained. “There are parties which have less than a thousand members, and some with less those than 2000.”
The regulation did not explicitly mention that parties needed to maintain this membership in order to continue to receive political party funding from the EC, Thaufeeq explained.
In an audit report on the elections commission, the Auditor General recently advised the commission not to grant funds to inactive political parties. However, “As a principle, we usually give funds to any parties which are active and follow our requirements, such as producing an annual audit report of the party every year.”
“Whenever we hold the funds, the parties take the issue to the court. When the court orders us to pay the money, we don’t have any option but to release the funds,” Thaufeeq explained.
Asked on what basis the court is making the decision, he said “The court in its order states that the elections commission does not have the authority to withhold the funds of political parties.
“But I believe the commission has the authority to hold funds when we are not certain of how the funds are being used. This is the money from the people that we are giving out to the parties, and it shouldn’t be misappropriated,” Thaufeeq said.
According to Thaufeeq, funds for six politicial parties in the 2012 budget were withheld initially, but were released after proper monitoring. Thaufeeq said funds for the remaining two political parties cannot be released because the parties had not adhered to the commission’s requirements.
The Maldives National Congress (MNC), a political party with a current membership of 1536, has sent a letter to the Speaker of Parliament Abdulla Shahid regarding the matter, asking parliament to look into it.
However, Thaufeeq said that he and the commission had high hopes for the proposed political parties’ bill which was drafted by the Attorney General’s office and the commission.
“I believe the political parties’ bill currently in parliament will be the solution. We have included a stipulation in the bill requiring the maintaining of party membership at 3000, but the figure might change,” He said.
“We were hoping the bill would pass by the end of last year but there came in other bills of higher priority. Many MPs have assured us that when the parliament starts this year, the bill will be given high priority,” he said.
The ousted MDP currently has the largest membership of all political parties with a membership of 47,614 members. The Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) is the second largest political party in terms of membership with 29,143 members, followed by the newly formed Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) which has 14,271 members. President Mohamed Waheed Hassan’s party has approximately
Current political party membership:
Party membership as of February 27:
MDP 47,614 (Former President Mohamed Nasheed’s party)
DRP 29,143 (Gayoom’s former party, now headed by Ahmed Thasmeen Ali. Speaker Abdulla Shahid is also a member)
AP 6070 (Adhaalath Party, headed by Sheikh Imran. Spokesperson is Islamic Minister Sheikh Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed)
IDP 3597 (Umar Naseer’s former party, prior to his move to the DRP and later PPM)
MSDP 1976
SLP 683
PP 1803
MNC 1536
JP 5177 (Party of Gasim Ibrahim, resort tycoon, VTV television station owner and member of the Judicial Services Commission).
PA 2608 (Party of Gayoom’s haf brother, Abdulla Yameen, and Deputy Speaker Mohamed Nazim)
GI 2625 (President Mohamed Waheed Hassan’s party)
MLP 938
DQP 2299 (President’s Special Advisor Dr Hassan Saeed’s party, also the party of Home Minister Dr Mohamed Jameel)
MRM 2606
PPM 14271 (Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s party, split from the DRP. Vice President of the party is Umar Naseer)
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ALL the WORMS will come out; when the TRUTH WILL OUT! WAHEED... OUT YOU GO!!!... IN WITH DEMOCRACY AND THE TRUELY ELECTED!ie THERE IS NO OTHER PRESIDENT OTHER THAN PRESIDENT NASHEED! YOU KNOW THAT; AND I KNOW THAT; AND THE WORLD KNOWS THAT!.......COUP!!!COP COUP!!!! ARMY COUP!!!! GAYOUM COUP!!!! JAIL IS WAITING FOR ALL OF YOU... COUP!!!! COUP!!!!
PEOPLE OF MALDIVES ARE GOING TO MARCH TO THE DOOR AND CHUCK WAHEED THE IMPOSTER OUT!
These people are affectively running a money making racket with the regulation loopholes. Some of these parties haven't seen activity for 3 years.
Hope the bill proposing the amendments gets passed soon.
oh, look at the colours. kula yellow.
Some parties are too small.Must go for a coallition or better be eliminated
MDP President Mohamed Nasheed should have been allowed to complete his term in office.
Since this was not done, it becomes clear that (1) the clock has been turned back to Gayoom's time, (2) there was a coup, (3) a large number of Maldivians, who compose the new illegal regime, do not know what multi-party democracy actually is.
It becomes absolutely clear that choosing Waheed as Vice President was a suicidal error of judgement on the part of MDP.
There should be a new presidential election in three months' time. It should be possible to do it.
The guy called Umar Naseer, Gayoom's favourite,who seems to have master-minded the revolt, is a very dangerous man indeed.
MDP must own up to all the mistakes they did when in presidential office.
DICTATOR NASHEED!! Mariya and Rekko distroyed MDP!!
CATCH UMAR NASEER AND PUT HIM IN JAIL!FREEZE ALL HIS WEALTH AND GIVE IT O THE PEOPLE!CATCH THEM ALL;THE DIRTY SCROUNDALS WHO LACK DECENCY AND UPRIGHT-NESS. APPLY SHARIA LAW TO COUP MEMBERS' CRIMES/TREASON ;WHICH SHOULD BE DEATH PENALTY!
@Michael Fahmy on Sun, 4th Mar 2012 10:39 PM
"MDP must own up to all the mistakes they did when in presidential office."
I don't think they realise how many mistakes they actually made! We can all list them, but no one in MDP leadership will listen to voices of reason. That's largely the reason why they are on the streets today instead of governing the country.
Their single biggest mistake was antagonising the religious fanatics. That gave enough incendiary for the opposition to blow up MDP out of the water. MDP just about held things under control when the Islamists were on a leash. As soon as that leash was cut, MDP lost control of the country.
Along the lines I was saying before, the biggest danger to democracy in the Maldives is Adhaalath. Without their support, neither DRP nor PPM would have been able to garner the sort of numbers to come out on to the streets against the former government.
It was all a "jihad" as far as a lot of people were concerned. Keep this in mind.
Alhan i think u are right now??
please do something on that...
The smaller parties are formed to obtain state benefits only. We must close them. If EC needs clarification he must demand those answers from the government and the Majlis
President Nasheed is the biggest dictator to be written in the history of Maldives
Yellow 38 percent eh. The rest is united right now.
The ppl who isn't signed up to a party is not with yellow either. 38 percent won't win an election. Cry, MDP, cry!
Oh and also ask Nasheed what he has to hide that he doesn't want an investigation on his reason for resignation. If this is a coup he will be reinstated as president so why ask for elections? Got something more than a drinks issue to hide is it?
The key players are Thas and Shahid, DRP is the kingmaker here. The PPM leadership (read Yameen, Gayyoom) are probably furious with their friends Riyaz, Illham, Hassan Saeed for denigrating Shahid.
After all they weren't in a good position to begin with, the purpose of PPMs creation being to sideline Thas and promote the family. MDP is the lesser of the evils in Thas' point of view, however MDP does not do well with coalitions. Both MDP and PPM are wooing DRP after all Majlis votes are what really matters.
Nasheed's biggest mistake was not starting the legal process on these people in the last 3 years and the fact that he gave the islamists too much freedom. Maldives had a beautiful and peaceful islam in this country until these sheikhs showed up and started scaring people, spreading their lies and conflict between people. how can they be called the saviors of islam when they are doing EVERYTHING and more to rid this country of islam and polluting the minds of those less sure of their faith in islam.
I hope the bill on political parties regulations is passed in a fair and indiscriminate fashion
Nasheeds biggest mistake was that he tried to bring justice and dignity to the people of this country. The people seem more concerned about whether Nasheed drinks or dances rather than what he has tried to bring to the people of this Country. Yes he made mistakes. But that does not justify a mutiny by the Police and Military.
They say the police wanted Nasheed to stop giving them orders that are against the constitution. Is what the Police are doing to brutalise people within the constitution? Waheed says he will not ask the police to undertake any unconstitutional acts. But from what I see Waheed really means is that he will give a free reign to the police to do whatever they want to the public as long they protect Waheed.
Maldives was never ready for party politics when President Nasheed started it all because of the immediate necessity.
However, it is killing us though!
Our money is drained out for the benefit of some unworthy politicians here.
This was all golha's game to cater his cartel!
MDP does have its good and bad just like parties elsewhere!
President Nasheed's good intention to bring about JUSTICE to firm grounds unfortunately hit him bad.
But it does appear to be teaching lessons to everyone.
MDP should steady itself.
Reaffirm it's belief and its commitments to its peoples.
MDP should muster enough courage to weather whatever damage that is being done by learning from mistakes!
A lot of good and sensible comments here surprisingly. I certainly do not want to go back to the days of the Gayoom era.
But unfortunately this may go down that road. I agree that Adaalath is a menace. We were Muslims long before these beared weirdos came to Maldives. We were peaceful people who followed Islam and the 5 pillars diligently. We did not have this divisiveness at all.
Adaalth came and destroyed the fabric of Maldivian society.
But it was not due to them that MDP lost power. They have no one else but themselves to blame for this. If they had followed the constitution and not let the corrupt politicians get away with it, they would still have been in power.
Getting so close to Israel, letting Maria's former husband be the only one to sell alcohol in Male, giving Reeko multi million dollar projects, promoting incompetent people, destroying the economy,operating outside the constitution, you name it the list goes on.
These were the main causes while Adaalath took advantage of the circumstances, they were given enough cannon fodder by MDP to be used against them.