KD should also abide by Law - Ibra

27 December 2007
Report: Jaxlee

Leader of Social Liberal Party (SLP) as well as MP for Male’ Ibrahim Ismail has said that even the Commissioner of Elections KD Ahmed Manik will have to abide by the Laws of the country. He made the statement speaking at the news conference held at the news room “Fansavees” at Dharubarruge. The conference briefed the media on the difficulties faced by SLP in its registration.

Referring to the Regulations governing political parties, Ibra said that there are 2 ways a party may be registered. The first way is when the Commissioner enters the party in the register of political parties up on completion of all necessary formalities required for the registration. The second way a party may be registered is as per the clause (b) of the article 15 of the 2005 Political Party Regulations, when the Commissioner fails to advise the party of his decision within the 30 day period.

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 3 month period Commissioner had not informed him whether the party would be registered or not. Ibra further noted that Commissioner Failure to reach a specific decision during the additional 15 days set by the Commissioner himself.

Ibra said as per the Political Party Regulations of 2005, when the 30 day period expired he wrote to Commissioner of Elections to release the registration papers on the 8 of December 2007. Ibra further noted that Commissioner of Elections revealed the cancellation of the permit issued to him to surrender necessary documentations for the registration of SLP on the 8 of December as well. Ibra further revealed that Commissioner’s claims that some body from Ma. Bourgainvilla had accepted the letter from the Commissioner informing Ibra of the revocation of the permit. However Ibra noted that to this day Ibra has still not received the letter.

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.

Speaking at news conference recently Minister of Legal Reform, Information and Arts Mohamed Nasheed has said that he considers LP as a registered party and the Ibra should be given the benefit of what is not specifically mentioned in political party regulations. He elaborated that the regulations does not state that ID cards has to be furnished along with membership forms and that obtaining copies of ID cards as a verification means was procedure employed in the Commissioner’s office.