Will propose amendment to allow registration of parties with 5,000 members: Mahloof

Galolhu-south MP Ahmed Mahloof has said that an amendment will be proposed to the article in the Bill on Political Parties which states that parties with less than 10,000 members will be dissolved; to state that the number of members required to form a party is 5,000.

In an interview to Sun, Mahloof said that the amendment will be proposed on the day the president ratifies the bill, or when the bill is returned to the parliament without ratification. He said that the purpose of this amendment is to ensure that active parties are not dissolved.

“There are several active parties, for example Adhaalath Party is very active. Qaumee Party is the same. I would not want these parties to be dissolved. The purpose of including 10,000 in the bill was to dissolve small, inactive parties. But there are parties that are active. They shouldn’t be dissolved,” Mahloof said.

He said that the amendment will state that parties can be registered with 5,000 members; however, funds should only be provided to parties that have 10,000 members. He said that discussions have been held with Parliamentary Group members of Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) in this regard.

“Our Parliamentary Group members are not strict or harsh. After the bill was passed, Gayoom told me unofficially when I met him that the bill was passed in a strict manner,” he said.

Meanwhile, Qaumee Party President Dr Hassan Saeed has said that the small parties should not be dissolved, but that it is not a problem for the state to not provide funds to inactive parties.

After the bill was submitted to Parliament after research by the Independent Institutions Committee, an amendment was proposed by Kudahuvadhoo MP Ahmed Amir which was supported by Fares Maathoda MP Ibrahim Mutthalib, to allow registration of parties which have 5,000 members. This amendment was voted against by 59 members including MPs of PPM, MDP and DRP. It was voted in favour only by six members.

Article 11 (a) of the Bill on Political Parties passed by the parliament last Thursday states that in order to register a political party, the names, signatures and fingerprints of a minimum of 10,000 members should be presented to the Elections Commission. The bill states that parties which presently do not have 10,000 members will be given three months after the bill is ratified to fulfil this requirement, and the parties that fail to do so will be dissolved.