MDP postpones Council of Appellate Judges election

The elections of Maldivian Democratic Party’s (MDP) Council of Appellate Judges have been postponed.

The decision was come to by the party’s National Council during its 181^st meeting held last night.

Two motions were presented at last night’s meeting. One was to mandate physical attendance to the voting, and the other was to hold a secret ballot.

A total of 116 members of the National Council took part in the vote to mandate physical attendance to the voting – out of whom 100 members voted for it, and 15 against it.

In deciding whether to conduct a secret ballot – a total of 118 members had taken part in the voting, out of whom 98 had voted for it, and 19 against it.

During last night’s meeting – the members of the National Council found themselves in disagreement over several matters. Questions were also raised as to the order of the names of the candidates contesting in the Council of Appellate Judges.

MDP’s Chairperson Hassan Latheef who was presiding the meeting had responded to the question – stating that the names had been arranged in the order of the applications they had received. He also added that the time and date the application was lodged on will be evident – as it was done online.

Latheef also stressed that the National Council has the discretion to make a decision on mandating physical attendance to the voting center in order to cast votes in the Council of Appellate Judges elections, and also to declare it a secret voting.

A total of 18 candidates are contesting in MDP’s Council of Appellate Judges elections.

MDP’s President, Parliament Speaker Mohamed Nasheed had criticized Alifushi MP Mohamed Rasheed Hussain (Big-A) in messages to a Whatsapp group of MDP National Council members regarding the elections.

Sun has received a screenshot of the messages. 

Nasheed stated that MP Rasheed’s allegation that members were being elected to the Council of Appellate Judges to orchestrate a move against President Solih was false, and that the MDP bylaws do not allow for something like that to be done. 

“Such hateful comments are designed to create conflict between myself and the President in this group. Comments meant to harass. I ask that you don’t believe this,” wrote Nasheed. 

Both Nasheed and Mohamed Rasheed are reportedly working to elect specific people to the Council of Appellate Judges, and Mohamed Rasheed is sharing a list of his choice of candidates.

Referring to this list, Nasheed said that only a very few of the candidates on Mohamed Rasheed’s list have been involved in party work before.