Most Maldivians still favour presidential system, new poll shows

A majority of Maldivians still favour the existing presidential system over a parliamentary system, a new survey by a Maldives-based, independent think tank revealed on Thursday.

Parliament had earlier this month sent to the Elections Commission a resolution seeking a referendum on the system of governance in Maldives by October 30. 

The Elections Commission (EC), which has tentatively set October 29 as the date for the referendum, has since requested the parliament to determine and provide the question to be asked of the people in the public referendum seeking views on changing the country's governance system.

Speaker Mohamed Nasheed, a long-time advocate of changing the existing presidential system to a parliamentary system, was set to submit a proposal to the parliament on Monday to determine the wording on the ballot paper to be used in the referendum on the governance system in Maldives, as well as a paper on the proposed system of governance. 

However, the sitting was called off after the parliament failed to meet the quorum. 

In its poll for September, The Baani Centre for International Policy asked voters whether they favour a presidential or parliamentary system.

The poll’s results showed a big majority in favour of the existing presidential system, by 64% to 12%, with 19% undecided.

"This suggests the ‘parliamentary camp’, led by [Nasheed's] The Democrats, has an uphill task to convince voters to switch systems, with just a month of campaigning available before referendum day," the survey report read.

The poll results are representative of the Maldivian voting population, with a 95% confidence level and a 5% margin of error. This means that if the poll was conducted multiple times, 95% of the time the results would be within 5% of the results from our poll.