PPM expresses concern over voters

The Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) has expressed concern over the procedure employed by the Elections Commission regarding re-registration, for people who will vote from a different location on election day.

Minister of Human Resources, Youth and Sports, and council member of PPM Mohamed Hussain Shareef told Sun Online that when these concerns were shared with officials of the Elections Commission, they replied that similar concerns had been noted but it is unlikely that adequate solutions can be found.

“We posed the question to them because we want a free and fair election in the Maldives, with the intention of getting a confirmation that pre-election preparations such as registration, voting-day issues, and post-election events have been organised in a responsible and professional manner, with controls to ensure that activities such as vote rigging would not take place,” he said.

“What we find worrying, is that they admitted that the concerns we raised in fact exist, and also said that adequate action has not been taken to address those problems due to different reasons.”

Shareef said that during the meeting with the commission yesterday, officials of the commission kept referring to ‘human error’ and saying that some things are inevitable due to human error.

“We won’t accept even one citizen losing the right to vote. And we have been informing them of our concerns regarding the previous presidential election. The sad thing is that no action has been taken still regarding those issues either,” he said.

Shareef said that even though the commission has strict rules regarding the voters’ registry at the moment, they do not plan to follow those rules strictly closer to the election day.

“For example, if a form has a person’s name but lacks his address, they are asking people to correct this and return the form. Neither the parties nor individuals have these controls. But yesterday they said that at the last minute, they would be extremely flexible when dealing with this,” he said.

He said that another worrying issue that came up in yesterday’s meeting was that the officials of the commission admitted that it had been noted that ‘more than 100 people have more than one identity card’.

Shareef said that while the citizens, political parties and foreign groups are calling for a free and fair election in the Maldives, the country is not capable of holding such an election; and that PPM is preparing to share its concerns regarding the Elections Commission with the Parliamentary Committee on Independent Institutions tomorrow.