The Elections Commission (EC) will investigate claims by the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) that more than 2500 MDP members were found to have been unknowingly deregistered from the party and registered with government-allied parties – mostly the Jumhoree Party (JP) – without their knowledge.
Elections Commissioner President Fuad Thaufeeq confirmed that an MDP official yesterday met with the EC and made the complaint. The commission has asked the MDP to send all the names and ID card details of the persons unregistered.
‘’After we get the names and ID card details we can check how many forms have been forwarded to the commission under their names, whose fingerprints were on the forms, and from which political party we received the forms,’’ Fuad explained.
He said the MDP has not yet sent the information requested, and that the commission will commence the investigation as soon as the information was received.
‘’If it requires police assistance for the investigation we will ask the police,’’ he added.
MDP Elections Committee Chair Ibrahim Waheed has claimed that more than MDP 2500 have unknowingly been transferred from party to the party of local business tycoon, MP Gasim Ibrahim.
Waheed said the issue was noticed when MDP members who turned out to vote in the MDP internal elections over the weekend complained that their names were not on the list of eligible voters.
According to Waheed, more than 2500 complaints were received over the same issue from the islands as well as from Male’.
When the Elections Committee looked into the matter, it discovered that most of the names were registered with different political parties, most of them with Gasim’s Jumhoree Party, he said.
Waheed said the MDP Membership and Complaints Committee will hold a meeting soon to discuss the issue.
The MDP’s President Dr Ibrahim Didi and Vice President MP Alhan Fahmy were recently voted out of their positions in a near-unanimous no-confidence motion by the party’s National Council. Soon afterwards, the pair joined the JP were immediately promoted to the party’s leadership in parallel positions.
Local media reported that during a press conference last week, Dr Didi accused the MDP of “undemocratic acts” and accused his former party of subverting political freedom.
Internal elections
Two-thirds of the MDP’s 48,181-strong membership base turned out to vote in the party’s single-candidate internal elections, held over the weekend to determine its presidential candidate.
Former President Mohamed Nasheed ran unopposed in the party’s election of its presidential candidate, however the party’s regulations require any candidate to receive at least 10 percent of the party’s vote to secure the nomination.
Following the final count of the 258 ballot boxes, Nasheed recorded 31,798 votes in favour to 269 against his being the party’s presidential candidate.
Chairperson candidate Moosa ‘Reeko’ Manik had 29,044 votes in favour to 2160 against, while Deputy Chairperson candidate Ali Shiyam had 563 in favour to 7 against.
The MDP has maintained calls for early elections following its ousting from power on February 7, with Nasheed resigning during a police and military mutiny under what he subsequently claimed was duress. The party has held regular demonstrations since that time calling for early elections.
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