Court rules PPM primary as legitimate

Civil Court has ruled the Progressive Party of Maldives’ presidential primary as a valid election.

Civil Court passed its ruling for the case by Umar Naseer, who claimed that an excess of 8,915 people were allowed to illegally vote during the PPM primary held late last March.

Concluding the proceedings for the case, the court declared today that plaintiff had failed to produce enough evidence to prove that a person outside the PPM membership had cast a vote during the election.

Civil Court also stated that PPM had failed to publish the party’s voter’s registry two weeks prior to the election, as required by the party’s regulation, although, since Umar Naseer had not raised a complaint regarding the matter during that period, it has to be regarded as Umar Naseer had consented the delay.

The court ruling further stated that the law governing political parties does not require a person to be registered at the Elections Commission in order to acquire membership of a political party.

The ruling also stated that the decision by the PPM Strategic Committee that a member who had signed up for another party can still vote in the primary, is a fundamentally wrong decision, Umar Naseer was not able to produce enough evidence to prove that such a person had voted during the PPM primary.

Speaking after sentencing, Judge Aishath Shujoon Mohamed said that the court believes that a number of events that should not have happened during an election had occurred during the PPM primary, but said that the court has to stick to the evidence presented when making a ruling.