The constitutional amendment bill submitted by Hulhudhoo MP Ilyas Labeeb seeking to allocate a percentile of parliamentary seats to female MPs, and cease increment of seats based on population increment has been dismissed by the legislative body.
At the voting after the preliminary reading of the bill, only 12 voted in favor of it with the remaining 38 members in the sitting voting against it.
The amendment to Article 71 of the Maldives Constitution stipulates that the maximum number of MPs in the parliament should be maintained at 76. With the proposed amendment, the parliament will be composed of 55 members representing the constituencies.
Additional to this, the amendment proposes electing two members to represent persons with special needs and 11 members to represent political parties based on their vote composition. The amendment also stipulates appointing eight female MPs to represent all the constituencies of the Maldives.
Article 71 of the Constitution stipulates that two members for the first five thousand residents registered for each administrative division or two members for administrative divisions with less than five thousand residents would be elected, and for constituencies where the registered residents exceed five thousand, one additional member for each group of five thousand residents in excess of the first five thousand would be elected.
Earlier, the Elections Commission (EC) notified that 93 MPs need to be elected for the 20th People's Majilis session based on the recent population increment of Maldives.
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