MDP hits back at EC’s condemnation of resolution backing targeted sanctions
The Elections Commission said that a political party that receives state funding should not be allowed to call for sanctions against government officials. The MDP’s national council had passed a resolution calling for targeted sanctions if the government continues to detain President Mohamed Nasheed in defiance of a UN rights panel judgment declaring his imprisonment arbitrary and illegal.
10 Oct 2015, 9:00 AM
The main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has hit back at the Elections Commission’s (EC) condemnation of a resolution adopted by the party’s national council last week backing targeted sanctions against state officials.
The MDP called for targeted sanctions if the government continues to detain President Mohamed Nasheed in defiance of a UN rights panel judgment declaring his imprisonment arbitrary and illegal. The government had called the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention’s (WGAD) judgment “flawed and premature” and said it “will not be made to act on the basis of a non-binding opinion.”
Condemning the MDP’s resolution “in the harshest terms”, the EC had said in a statement on Thursday that the proposed actions were contrary to article 7 of the Political Parties Act, which prohibits “calls for or encouragement of extreme or harsh actions.”
As the “guardian of political parties”, the commission expressed concern with the resolution challenging the government’s decisions as well as stating that Nasheed’s conviction on a terrorism charge was unlawful.
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