Elections Commission of the Maldives (ECM) has refuted claims made by Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) that 5,000 of its members were transferred to other political parties.
Secretary General of PPM Mohamed Tholal had stated in a tweet that over 5,000 of its members have been transferred to other parties against their wishes since October last year, and requested ECM to investigate the issue and to re-register the members to PPM.
In response, President of ECM Fuad Thaufeeq said the electoral body receives numerous complaints of members leaving or switching parties and that it has no authority to look into these issues. He noted that ECM recently discussed the issue with political parties, and said that parties and individuals need to be more responsible in verifying their membership forms.
ECM has decided to publicise information on the membership forms submitted by political parties and individuals for a week, in order to solve the issue of the submission of numerous fake or unverifiable party membership forms. ECM announced the decision after holding discussions with political parties and will be approving and implementing the policy after its next meeting.
Currently, there is no mechanism to stop the submission of fake or unverifiable forms, and parties are responsible for verifying the signature and fingerprints before submitting the forms. The biggest issue faced by ECM is the absence of a fingerprint database. However, the government is planning to formulate a database with fingerprints of citizens above the age of 18.