New Party Submits Signatures

5,272 signatures in support of the Maldives Social Democratic Party (MSDP) were handed to the Elections Commissioner on Tuesday, Haveeru reports.

No-one from the Elections Commission has agreed to confirm the numbers for Minivan News.

The leader of the MSDP, Reeko Ibrahim Manik, is quoted as saying he believed the new signatures would be “legit.”

Previously, the MSDP had submitted 3,574 signatures, of which the elections commissioner claimed 2,395 had been unacceptable. The commission had said some of the ID numbers had not matched, some signatories had not been 21, some names had been repeated and some signatories were members of other parties.

The Elections Commissioner, KD Ahmed Manik, said his organisation would now begin checking the new signatures.

According to state rules on registering a political party, the names and signatures of 3,000 proposed supporters are required.

“We tried to verify the people last time around also,” the Elections Commissioner said in Haveeru. “Hopefully this time, there will be 3,000 legit signatures. Since there are such a huge number of people who have signed the list, the possibility is very high.”

The MSDP will become the fifth registered party in the Maldives if the Commissioner deems everything to be above board.

There are plans for more political parties in the country, with former Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) president, Ibrahim Ismail, preparing the groundwork for his Liberal Democratic Party.