More than a line on an ID card: the permanent address dilemma
Solving one injustice could create another.
Artwork: Dosain
06 Nov, 5:15 PM
The Maldives faces a peculiar democratic crisis: 120,000 voters reside in Greater Malé but only 55,000 can elect representatives for the capital. The rest vote for other islands they no longer call home. Abolishing this system of "permanent addresses" has been proposed as the obvious solution. But dismantling the outdated bureaucracy would erase more than just a line on an ID card.
Maldivians are intrinsically connected to their goathi, their ancestral home. A goathi is how one Ali is distinguished from another, how inheritance flows, how identity itself is mapped. This attachment to a patch of land is cultural, genealogical, and deeply personal. A Kandi Ahanmadhanik and a Sikka Ahanmadhanik might share a name but their identities are rooted in eponymous homes their families have occupied for generations.
Most Maldivian families have owned land for centuries. Everyone belongs to a lineage tied to a specific plot of land or the distinctive name of their goathi. While the state retains ultimate ownership of land, Maldivians have long enjoyed hereditary rights over it. This system aligns with Islamic principles of inheritance, which specify how property is distributed among family members.
To abolish the concept of a permanent address, therefore, is not merely an administrative reform. It is a reconfiguration of Maldivian identity.
The case for abolition
However, there is a genuine case and logical rationale behind the growing calls for abolition. Many Maldivians, particularly younger generations, question why a person who has lived their entire adult life in Malé should be forced to vote for representatives of an island they have not visited in years.
The Malé City Council serves a population of 210,053 people, including expatriates, the majority of whom have no say in governing their own neighborhoods. According to the 2022 census, 85,077 Maldivians – 54 percent of Malé's population – are registered on other islands.
Of the current population of 252,768 people across Malé, Hulhumalé, and Villimalé, only 76,556 are native to Malé. Yet, according to official records, Malé has just over 55,000 registered voters, while more than 120,000 Maldivians – 40 percent of the country's population – live in Greater Malé. This mismatch between where people live and where they are counted distorts representation at every level of governance.
The frustration is understandable and the system undeniably flawed. But while the demand for reform is valid, it is equally important to recognise the cultural, historical, and religious realities that cannot simply be legislated away.
A world without permanent address
Consider what would happen if the system of permanent address was abolished altogether.
Greater Malé would see a massive surge in its official population, potentially exceeding 150,000 voters. This would dramatically reshape parliamentary representation, granting the capital more than 30 seats while Thiladhunmathi could lose half of their current representation. At the local level, island councils would see voter lists shrink by more than half, stripping local politicians and councillors of their bargaining power overnight.
Such a shift would inevitably centralise political power even further in Malé. Election campaigns would be drawn to the capital, focusing on urban voters and urban issues. Promises would be made not to rural islanders but to residents of Malé and Hulhumalé. The political discourse would narrow. The unique concerns of distant islands would fade further from the national agenda.
Instead of solving inequity, abolishing the permanent address could accelerate centralisation. Political power, financial resources, and development priorities would concentrate even more tightly within the capital, leaving the outer islands further marginalised.
Without a mechanism to preserve the political weight of the islands, removing the permanent address could deepen existing divides rather than bridge them.
The way forward
The permanent address system is outdated and unfair in its current form. But abolishing it without structural reform risks replacing one imbalance with another. Any change must consider both the intended and unintended consequences.
Perhaps the solution lies not in erasing the concept entirely, but in decoupling representation from registration, allowing citizens, if they choose, to vote where they actually reside while maintaining their goathi-based connection for cultural and legal purposes.
This choice matters. For some, identity is inseparable from their ancestral island. My stepfather, forced to move to Malé at 12, has never seen himself as a Malé'an. He is a proud Adduan, his heart tied to the island where he grew up, where his mother rests, and where his ancestors lived. Even at 60, he dreams of returning to Addu and building a life there. Voting for representatives who share that vision is the only way he feels he can shape a future for the home he has never truly left. Voting for Malé representatives is abhorrent to him.
Whether one finds pride in their birthplace or builds roots elsewhere, both choices deserve respect. Love for one's homeland should never be dismissed or demonised.
At the same time, the state must uphold the fundamental rights guaranteed by the constitution. Every citizen has the freedom to enter, remain in, and leave the Maldives, and to travel within the country. Every citizen has the right to move to, and take up residence on, any inhabited island, and to receive equal access to rights and benefits wherever they establish residency.
This means land everywhere should be accessible to everyone. Housing schemes must be open to residents of all islands, without discrimination based on permanent address. Social housing or flat allocations should not be limited by outdated or exclusionary criteria that divide "insiders" from "outsiders."
Perhaps what truly needs to be abolished is not the concept of the permanent address itself, but the arbitrary and at times xenophobic way it is used to determine entitlement to housing, benefits, and belonging.
Such reforms would begin to address the inequalities perpetuated by the permanent address system without erasing the cultural and emotional bonds that tie Maldivians to their ancestral homes.
The debate over the permanent address is ultimately about who we are as a people. It forces us to confront how identity, heritage, and democracy intertwine in the Maldives.
Column By Saif Fathih
Saif Fathih is a columnist at the Maldives Independent and a serving member of the Malé City Council for Galolhu North. With his educational background in communications, international studies and public policy, he previously worked as a journalist, editor and public policy advisor, with roles including senior policy director at the ministry of national planning and editor of Ocean Weekly Magazine. Saif began his career as a radio producer and presenter at Minivan Radio, writer for Minivan Daily, and translator for the British High Commission and the European Union Mission to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. He is also the host of Ithuru Vaahaka, the Maldives Independent podcast.
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