Registration form for political parties to be modified

Elections Commission (EC) has announced their decision to modify the registration for political parties starting November.

EC’s President Fuad Thaufeeq told Sun on Friday night that the decision was taken to decrease false admittance to political parties.

“The aim is to omit some sections which is believed pointless at present, and to bring a positive change to expedite the process in light of the experience within the past days,” he added.

Fuad detailed that the main modification being brought to the registration form is to include a section on the details of the mother of the person requesting admittance to political party.

“This will make things difficult to people filling counterfeit forms as well, as this information is not specified in the ID Card,” he had stressed.

Apart from this, Fuad said that the new form will include the photo of the requester, and the fingerprints of witnesses.

He also revealed that efforts were underway to develop an online portal to register for political parties as part of efforts to decrease false admittance. He added that the portal is expected to be completed by the end of this year – which would ultimately shift registration to political parties to an online process.

“Have not finished finalizing everything yet. We will take time to test this as well. But the software, for most parts, has been completed,” he stated.

EC began accepting complaints on false admittance to political parties this June. They also decided to fine political parties found to have been submitted counterfeit forms by MVR 10,000 for each form. Meanwhile, registrars of political parties will be fined MVR 5,000 for first offense involving counterfeit form and MVR 10,000 for repeat offense.