Male’, Maldives – MP of Hulhumale’ Constitueny and Chairperson of the Parliament’s Committee on Decentralisation, Ali Niyaz has called out to the government saying that the relevant authorities must give the Election Commission the opportunity to do the necessary preparations for the coming local council elections.
Speaking at Sunday night’s Parliament meeting, Ali Niyaz said that the Elections Commission said that due to the current pandemic and the extended public health emergency, it may not be possible to have the local council elections on the scheduled date and that the government authorities must make it possible for the Election Commission to have the council elections on the scheduled date.
Ali Niyaz said that the Election Commission now needs the permission to do the internal preparations which are necessary for the elections and that as he does not believe that there is a legislative obstruction in the way of granting this permission to the comission, the government authorities must allow the commission to carry out their work.
In addition to this, MP Niyaz said that there is no benefit which the country can gain from further postponing the elections as some of major powers given to the local councils have been declined under the revisions brought to the special law concerning local councils.
It is important for all the government authorities to give their full corporation in order the local elections on the scheduled date as keeping the current councillors in their positions for an additional year may have negative outcomes.
MP Ali Niyaz
Replying to Ali Niyaz, Speaker of the Parliament of Maldives Mohamed Nasheed said that the parliament will inform the relevant authorities by letter to give their full corporation on order to have the council elections on time without further delay.
The local council elections were initially scheduled to be held in April. However, due to tye current Covid-19 pandemic in Maldives, the elections were postponed and is now to be held on March 6th of 2021.
