MDP proposes allowing residents to vote for councils where they live
Niyaz said voters who wished to continue voting based on their permanent address should also have that option.
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The Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has proposed allowing people to vote in local council elections in the island or city where they live, instead of requiring them to vote based on their permanent registered address.
The proposal is included in a decentralisation policy paper presented at the MDP congress on Saturday by Ali Niyaz, secretary of the party’s Decentralisation Committee and former MP for Hulhumalé.
Under the current system, voters elect the council of the island or city where their permanent address is registered, even if they have lived elsewhere for an extended period.
The MDP proposal would allow residents to vote for councillors in the island or city where they live. Niyaz said voters who wished to continue voting based on their permanent address should also have that option.
Explaining the proposal, Niyaz said people should not be compelled to vote in a particular council election solely because their permanent registration is in that constituency.
“A person may or may not want to vote in their home island. But in a local election, they should not be compelled to vote where their permanent registration is,” Niyaz said.
He said voters should instead be given a choice to vote where they live or, if they prefer, in the constituency where their permanent address is registered.
The residency-based voting proposal is among several changes contained in the MDP’s decentralisation policy paper. Niyaz said the document was prepared after considering the experience of the decentralised governance system in the Maldives and research conducted on the subject.
He said this included findings from the Maldives National University and research conducted with the involvement of the Local Councils Association.
“I believe there are important issues in this,” Niyaz said.
The policy also proposes increasing the block grant allocated to councils from five per cent of the state budget to 15 per cent.
It further proposes considering the allocation of 20 per cent of revenue collected for the Green Fund, 50 per cent of land rent and five per cent of central taxes collected from a council’s jurisdiction to local councils.
Another proposal seeks to separate council administrations from the Civil Service and give councils direct authority over their administrative affairs, including the recruitment, dismissal and promotion of employees.
The policy also proposes changes to the structure of councils. Except for council presidents and vice-presidents, other councillors would no longer be required to attend the council office every working day. Instead, they would receive an allowance for meetings they attend. The proposal also calls for increasing the number of councillors elected from larger constituencies.
Changes have also been proposed to women’s representation in local government. The policy calls for abolishing Women’s Development Committees and, instead, requiring an equal number of male and female councillors to be elected, excluding the council president.
Niyaz previously chaired Parliament’s Decentralisation Committee during the former MDP administration, when amendments were made to expand the financial and administrative powers of councils. The 2019 reform proposals included allocating five per cent of the annual state budget to councils and providing additional revenue-generating powers.
The Decentralisation Act governs the powers and responsibilities of local authorities, including council finances, grants, revenue and the administration of services within their jurisdictions.
The MDP congress is considering the decentralisation policy alongside proposed amendments to the party constitution and its broader governance reform proposals.
