Scores leave PPM to join PNC amid membership drive

Scores of people have joined the main ruling People’s National Congress (PNC) from its coalition partner, the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), after the former initiated a membership drive to boost numbers.

PNC’s secretary-general Zeenaz Adnan told Sun on Saturday that the party initiated a nationwide membership drive earlier this month.

She said that the party was targeting “people who want to join PNC but have yet to do so.”

She said PNC officials are conducting door-to-door visits to help fill out membership forms.

Zeenaz said the membership drive isn’t targeted at members of a specific party. However, she said that a high number of members have joined the PNC from PPM.

She said that teams are currently operating in 12 areas, including Male’, and will expand to other areas in the coming days.

Maldives currently has 11 political parties registered with the Elections Commission (EC). The main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) remains the largest party, with 50,980 members. PPM has 34,827 members, while PNC has 28,704.

PNC was founded by former Maldivian president Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom in 2019, amid a legal dispute over the ownership of PPM. Yameen would go on to win the case, after which PNC operated as PPM’s sister party. But after PPM’s presidential candidate, the then-jailed Yameen’s was disqualified from running in the 2023 elections. The then-opposition coalition decided to produce a candidate from PNC – President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu – who would go on to win the election.

Following his election win, President Muizzu was quickly elected as PNC’s leader, and the party grew more prominent, outshining PPM. Meanwhile, Yameen, who had been the leader of PPM and headed the coalition, left the coalition to form a new party, the People’s National Front (PNF), after accusing the leadership of deliberately sidelining him.

Following its victory in the 2023 presidential elections, PNC went on to win this year’s parliamentary elections as well as the Male’ City by-elections, though it did concede the mayor seat to MDP.

Abdul Raheem Abdul Raheem, the chairperson of PNC and the speaker of Parliament, has promised to make PNC the country’s largest political party by the end of this year.