People's Majlis have started debating the crucial election commission bill which is one of the bills urgently required for the process of implementing the new Constitution and hold the first ever multi party elections of the country. The bill submitted by Legal Reform Ministry was earlier shared with the political parties in a bid to avoid long debates and amendments to speed up the transitional tasks mandated to the Majlis. Earlier in the day, Majlis passed a motion proposed by Speaker Mohamed Shihab reducing the committee and debating times and simplifying procedures bills and other matters submitted to the Majlis have to go through before being passed by the Majlis.
Legal Reform Minister Mohamed Nasheed explained to members about the objectives of the bill as a prerequisite for elections to be held pursuant to the new Constitution. He said he has met with the co group appointed by political parties and ironed out any major problems in the bill. He said the bill was drafted according to the provisions in the Constitution in order to make the commission independent and hold free and fair elections. He said there are 4 bills on independent institutions and 2 bills on elections which are submitted to the Majlis while 3 more bills will be submitted soon.
Election bill aims at establishing an independent and impartial election commission in the Maldives to hold elections and referendums as required by the Constitution. The commission being a constitutionally empowered institution responsible for organizing, conducting and managing elections in the Maldives without any intimidation, fear, confrontation, inappropriate influence or corruption to ensure the right of the people to vote in a free and fair manner, while establishment of an independent election commission will guarantee these rights and purposes and the bill in its inclusive form stipulate all the responsibilities and powers vested in the commission for fulfilling these objectives and purposes.
Several members participated in the debate and supported the bill saying it was a good bill which do not need much improvement.But some members expressed serious concerns about the allocation of electoral constituencies. They said the bill has not detailed these constituencies as required in the Constitution and this is a serious void. They said the Constitution states these constituencies must be detailed by law on the most equal basis in regard to the populations of the electoral constituencies. These members said such an important matter as allocation of electoral constituencies must not be handed to the election commission, and it must be passed by the Majlis as required by the Constitution.
Some members spoke about the history of elections in the Maldives which they said is marked by vote rigging, fraud and other irregularities. It is a shameful story they said and referred to the sad record of the referendum held last year to decide a system of government. List of voters and unused ballot papers are still not accounted and revealed, they said. They urged the new election commission and future elections must be free of such problems when we are embracing unprecedented democratic reforms under the new Constitution.
Some members defended these allegations and said voting and elections have been conducted satisfactorily in the past and the referendum taken on 18 August 2007 was the best we had so far. The debate was characterized by differences of thinking on the part of the parties members represented. Opposition members availed every opportunity to find fault of the president and government, while members on the side of the government were quick to defend all such accusations.
At the end of the debate members voted in support of accepting the bill.
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