Hussain Amru, who ran as The Democrat’s running mate in the presidential election, is contesting to run in the party’s internal election to determine the president of the party.
The election has been passed to be held on December 2, 2023.
Following the interim council meeting of The Democrats, Amru announced in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that he intends to run for president once the election application process is opened.
While Amru has announced that he will run for president, Mihaaru News reported the party's presidential candidate Ilyas Labeeb and the acting chairperson have also expressed interest in contesting for the post.
During the party's interim council meeting held on Saturday evening, September 23, the party's PG leader Ali Azim proposed postponing the elections to December. Azim, who represents the Central Henveiru constituency in the parliament, said that there was work to be done for the constitutional vote to determine the system of governance in the Maldives. Therefore, he did not want to cat a shadow to the internal elections.
Other council members who spoke in support of Azim's proposal also highlighted the need for greater focus on referendum at the moment. The members also pointed out that a lot needs to be done to increase the membership of the party for the internal elections as well.
“The referendum will be an election that determines the future of Maldives. Therefore our focus should wholly be on that election. And we will have to work twice as hard for that election than we did for the presidential election,” Amru said.
According to the Political Parties Act, internal elections have to be held within three months of the party's registration and positions has to be filled.
The Democrats was officially registered on July 12. According to the law, the party's elections must take place before October 12. The party's interim chairperson, Hassan Latheef, highlighted that the election date should be set with this legal deadline in consideration.
“There is a penalty if people are not appointed to the posts within that period. If you don't pay the fine, then there is what happens next [in the law], that's to deduct that amount when they allocate funds for political parties,” he said.
Hasan Latheef asserted that the decision-making process should be conducted in a way that benefits the party politically. On the other hand, Ali Azim requested that the elections be postponed, even if it includes incurring fines.
The internal elections were unanimously approved by 31 members of the council. Hasan Latheef said that the filing of nominations will be held close to that date.
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