Report: Jaxlee
Commissioner of Elections KD Ahmed Manik could not prove that, according to the regulations, within 30 days he informed Ibra that his party could not be registered, Minister of Information and Legal Reform Mohamed Nasheed has said.
In a press conference held yesterday at “Fansavees”, Nasheed said that instead of informing Ibra that his party could not be registered, KD is talking about some ID cards. Nasheed said that as the regulation has not been acted upon, liberal party has the right to be active as a political party in the political scenario unless a court order is issued and KD should also have to believe it.
Nasheed said that when looked in to the regulation of political parties issued by a Presidential decree in the year 2005, Article 12 & 15 clearly shows evidence that liberal party is registered.
“According to article 15, once the party hold registration meeting, they have to submit to the commissioner to attain registration within 30 days. And within 30 days after submission, the commissioner must inform the party that they could not be registered. Very clearly it states that. If not, articles 15 says that that party would be registered and that party has the right to function as a political party and the registration certificate should be issued by the Commissioner if such a thing happens” Nasheed said.
Minister further said that the purpose of that clause was that it might take a long time for government to respond for the matter and the attorney general has also not said anything against that.
Nasheed said that he is not talking for the sake of Ibra, but he is speaking the truth according to the regulations.
According to a Press release from the Commissioner’s Office Ibra on four different occasions had submitted 3989 membership forms. The release detailed how the Commissioner disqualified 2372 names. The Commissioner’s release points out that, out of the 2372 names, 1371 are names already registered as members of other parties, 12 names that has been previously been submitted to the Commissioner’s Office to be registered as members of parties that are under registration process and 989 members were disqualified for failure to provide complete information.
However Ibra said the Commissioner is in possession of 3000 membership forms which were verified and accepted by the Commissioner himself and that this was duly informed to him as well. He said that among the documentations submitted to the Commissioner’s office were the agreements signed by those members, who the Commissioner claimed were members of other parties, requesting the Commissioner to cancel their previous membership and duly register them as members of SLP. Ibra further questioned how the 1371 names noted by the Commissioner can be members of other parties when 900 of the 1371 had never signed up to become member of any other party.
Ibra noted that dispute between the Commissioner and Liberal Party arose when the Commissioner imposed an extra legal requirement on the Party by demanding that the Party submit photocopies of National Identity Cards of some 1383 party members.
The view of the Party, that the demand for the submission of the national ID cards was an extra legal requirement was supported in writing by the then Acting Attorney General, Minister of Information and Arts, Mohamed Nasheed revealed the Media Release. However, the media release points out that Commissioner ignored the legal opinion of the Attorney General. He also noted that this extra legal requirement was not imposed on any other party before.
According to Ibra the 30 day period granted to the Commissioner by the Political Party Regulations to inform the party of his decision expired on the 2 of this month. He noted that during the 30 day period Commissioner had not informed him whether the party would be registered or not and KD Ahmed Manik has so far failed to prove that he informed Ibra that his party could not be registered.
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