Male’, Maldives – The Parliament has been scheduled to reconvene for an extraordinary sitting outside of regular sessions on Wednesday, 13th January.
The extraordinary sitting scheduled to begin at 08:30 am on January 13, is being held to commence work on revisions to the Special Provisions Act on Local Council Elections 2020 in order to expedite the postponed Local Council Elections. The agenda for the sitting includes the first reading of the Bill on Revision of Special Provisions Act on Local Council Elections 2020, which Hulhumale’ MP Ali Niyaz submitted to the Parliament earlier this Thursday.
Ali Niyaz told local news outlet Sun, that key revisions to the Act are designed to enable for the elections to be held even if the state of public health emergency remains in effect, enable for legally mandates time frames for elections preparations including deadlines for voter registration and finalization of voters’ list to be shortened.
Another key revision is to authorize the Elections Commission to set an election date. While Local Council Elections were originally scheduled to be help in April 2020, they have now been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Elections Commission later attempted to hold the postponed elections on March 6, but the attempt fell through following the recent extension to the state of public health emergency until February 3. Elections Commission’s chairman Ahmed Shareef recently announced that the commission now hopes to have the necessary legislative revisions pushed through this January and hold the elections on April 3.
