Parliament approves Habeeb to Elections Commission

Parliament has appointed Ismail Habeeb to the Elections Commission today, a vacancy left by Ibrahim Waheed (Ogaru) when he resigned in October last year.

Ismail Habeeb - who has previously held the Director General position at the Elections Commission - was approved with a majority of 60 votes and none against, at a sitting this afternoon. Habeeb had also received the highest number of points from the committee evaluation.

President nominated three names for the Elections Commission member post; Ismail Habeeb, former Elections Commission’s Director General Mohamed Tholal and former Deputy Commissioner of Police Ahmed Rishwan.

Tholal scored 65 points in the committee evaluation. The low score was attributed to disagreements within the committee on whether he was the best candidate, after discovering that Tholal’s wife was standing for the parliamentary election scheduled for 22 March.

Rishwan was disqualified from the evaluation for failing to attend the committee interview.

Following a 30-minute delay over issues with the parliament’s sound system, today’s sitting began around 1:30 with a total of 39 MPs in attendance.