The Parliament of the Maldives has approved the motion to distribute state funds based on the number of votes a party receives in elections instead of the number of party members.
Parliament Mohamed Abdulla Shafeeq submitted the motion on behalf of the Elections Commission of the Maldives (ECM), stating that individuals are being registered to parties without their knowledge.
The Parliamentary Committee on Independent Institutions met with ECM members during its evaluation and in its report found that the electoral body has no fingerprint verification system, 25% of the membership forms are checked and half of the forms suspected to be fraudulent are checked for verification. It also found that parties only dismiss members after they file a complaint at the electoral body, and the electoral body has no means to summon witnesses to verify the information on membership forms.
ECM has also made several requests for the committee to include in the motion, which consist of allowing individuals to register to a party using an online portal and allowing parties access to the portal to manage their membership registration. It stated that the portal will prevent duplicate membership forms for different parties.
ECM began work to amend the regulations on distributing state funds in response to complaints over the high number of invalid membership applications. The electoral body has discussed making legislative changes to solve this issue with the AGO and has also been visiting the offices of political parties to determine how the state funds are being used. It stated that the cause of the overwhelming number of invalid membership forms is the state providing funding based on the number of members in a party.