The Democrats File Police Case Against PNC for Alleged Illegal Membership Registration

The Democrats said yesterday that they have pressed charges against the ruling party, the People’s National Congress (PNC), for allegedly registering the Democrats as members of the PNC.

The Democrats met with the Elections Commission of Maldives (ECM) yesterday for allegedly registering members from The Democrats to PNC. In a post made on X, The Democrats accused PNC of registering its own members to PNC and said they had submitted the case to the police for investigation.

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“… we have submitted the case to the police for investigation and to press criminal charges against them as per Article 310 of the Penal Code of the Maldives,” they said in Dhivehi, on their post on X. 

The party also said it has filed with the ECM to fine the PNC for illegally transferring membership from The Democrats to the PNC, as per article 49 of the Political Party Act. They additionally requested that the ECM reinstate the membership of The Democrats who were registered with the PNC against their will.

President of PNC Imthiyaz Fahumy said to MV+ that they found over 700 of its members had been registered to other parties fraudulently.

“Five hundred of those were to PNC,” he said in Dhivehi. 

The other fraudulent transfer of membership was to other political parties. 

Due to fraudulent registration of members to political parties, ECM announced that it would halt membership registration until February 15, on January 16. Transparency Maldives has also urged the government and ECM to investigate this matter and take action against the guilty parties in this ongoing issue.