Former minister Mohamed Maleeh Jamaal and former parliamentarian Mohamed Waheed Ibrahim have rejoined the opposition Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM).
Mohamed Maleeh Jamaal and Mohamed Waheed Ibrahim handed over their party application forms to the interim leader of the opposition Progressive Coalition Abdul Raheem Abdulla at a special ceremony on June 19. Maleeh was previously a member of PPM and served in the cabinet from 2013 to 2015 during former President Abdulla Yameen's tenure.
However, Maleeh later joined the opposition and campaigned for President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih in the 2018 presidential election. Maleeh was included in the cabinet when President Solih took office but was dismissed earlier this year and has since been critical of the current administration.
Meanwhile, Mohamed Waheed Ibrahim is a former parliamentarian who represented PPM and a former member of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC). Although the Supreme Court overturned Waheed's dismissal from PPM in 2017, he left the party on his own accord to campaign for the coalition formed by the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) to elect President Solih.
Furthermore, former parliamentarian Mohamed Abdul Kareem also joined PPM at the ceremony. He is a former member of the Male' City Council who left MDP in 2019.
PPM recently announced it has begun a campaign to increase the party's membership by 10,000 by the end of August. PPM has 37,093 registered members, while the largest party in the country and main ruling party MDP has 53,139 registered members, according to statistics of the Elections Commission of Maldives (ECM).