Main-ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP)'s Villimale Constituency President Firuzul Firaq has said losing the chance to contest in the Villimale Women's Development Committee by-election was a great loss to the party.
A seat on Villimale's WDC became vacant following the death of committee member Aminath Eman Ibrahim, who was from MDP. After the Elections Commission opened applications for candidates who wished to contest in the election, MDP opened applications to party members 24 hours before the EC's application deadline. While EC's deadline was noon on Thursday, MDP submitted papers 45 minutes past the deadline, due to which EC refused to accept the application.
In a statement released by Firuzul, he said although EC opened applications for by-election candidates on March 29, MDP opened applications for their members a day before the deadline. He said that interested candidates were granted only two hours to send in their papers.
Although two candidates applied within the timeframe, one candidate later withdrew her name, leaving only one remaining candidate. Firuzul said that if there were no other candidates, MDP had a policy that allowed to eliminate the need for a primary to decide which candidate would receive the party ticket.
'Even if the candidate was careless, or even if the fault lies with the party's Secretary-General, I believe this is a huge loss for MDP and the Villimale Constituency. We have lost a definite seat, a seat which MDP has held for years,' he said.
Firuzul further said he hoped MDP Secretariat's work would improve under a leadership led by Economic Minister Fayyaz Ismail.
Two candidates are contesting in the Villimale WDC by-election: one from the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) and a candidate from the Peoples' National Congress (PNC). Both parties submitted their papers before the deadline.
