Ex-president Yameen retains PPM leadership

It upheld the High Court’s annulment of the Elections Commission’s refusal to recognise decisions approved at the congress, including the election of Yameen as the PPM president along with new deputies and an executive council.

Delivering the judgment by the apex court’s full bench, Chief Justice Dr Ahmed Abdulla Didi reportedly dismissed the EC’s grounds for rejecting the congress, which included non-members acting as delegations and failure to observe a requirement for ballots to be cast at a voting booth as a box was carried each delegate.

The electoral body was unable to say which non-members voted as delegates and the PPM statutes did not require the ballot box to be kept in a specific place, he noted. The purpose of the voting rules was served if secrecy of the ballot was ensured, he added.