Bill on Political Parties passed; parties with less than 10,000 members to be dissolved

The parliament has passed the Bill on Political Parties, which states that parties with less than 10,000 members will be dissolved.

The bill states that once it is ratified by the president and comes into effect, parties with less than 10,000 members will be given three months to increase its members, and failure to meet this requirement within three months would result in the party being dissolved.

Out of the 68 MPs present at today’s sitting, 64 voted in favour of passing this bill, while four voted against it. MPs who voted against this bill were Meedhoo MP Ahmed Siyam Mohamed, Kudahuvadhoo MP Ahmed Amir, Vilufushi MP Riyaz Rasheed and Fares Maathoda MP Ibrahim Mutthalib.

When voting was asked for the bill, Meedhoo MP and Leader of Maldives Development Alliance (MDA) spoke in opposition of the bill. He protested and said that this bill should not be passed by the parliament.

Over 40 amendments were proposed to this bill, out of which about 15 were passed by the parliament.

Article 11 (a) of the bill states that a political party can only be registered by submitting the names, signatures and fingerprints of a minimum of 10,000 people to the Elections Commission.

Even though the bill states that fingerprints are a requirement in the application forms to join political parties, this requirement has been discontinued by the Elections Commission.

Kudahuvadhoo MP and Deputy Leader of MDA Ahmed Amir proposed an amendment to the clause that states that 10,000 signatures are required to registered a political party. He proposed that a party can be registered with 5,000 members. However, out of the 67 MPs present during the voting on this amendment, 59 voted against it. While only six MPs voted in favour, two MPs abstained from voting.

Meanwhile, 16 political parties are currently registered with Elections Commission. Out of these, MDP with 47,192 members, PPM with 17,900 members and DRP with 25,190 members are the parties that meet the requirement of 10,000 members.