MDP requests reviewing PNC membership forms over authenticity doubts

The opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has said it requested the Elections Commission (EC) to review the authenticity of the membership forms of ruling People’s National Congress (PNC).

The main opposition party has made the request amid allegations that the ruling party was deceptively enrolling members from other political parties to inflate its numbers.

In November last year, PNC said it has received 97,000 membership forms by then and added the party aims to become the first political party with a membership of 100,000.

MDP raised concerns over this claim, and alleged PNC had removed the opposition party’s general and congress members from MDP membership and added their names to the ruling party.

The opposition party further alleges PNC of signature forgery and was forcing government authorities to conceal this misconduct.

Anas Abdul Sattar, MDP’s spokesperson, while speaking with ‘Sun’ Online said that the party shared its concerns with EC, and requested the commission look into the authenticity of PNC’s membership forms.

Anas said the ruling party should not be enrolling members by abusing state resources, but MDP had learned PNC was exploiting its power to deceptively inflate its membership with forged documents.

He highlighted the incident of former State Minister of the Ministry of Heritage, Mohamed Thoriq, who was inducted to PNC as a member without his knowledge. An issue the former minister has already lodged with the Maldives Police Service to investigate.

Following this, the deputy leader of PNC parliamentary group and Vilimale’ MP had denied Thoriq’s allegations. According to the MP, membership matters fall directly under him and the party had directly visited its potential members to complete their membership forms.

According Elections Commission’s registry, MDP is still the largest political party in terms of members. As of September 19, the party has 50,851 members while the ruling PNC has just 28,983 members.