Leader of MDP and Speaker of the Parliament Mohamed Nasheed has accused President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih of removing original MDP members from the party who are less likely to vote for him in the upcoming presidential primary.
Earlier this week, MDP opened its application for the primary and would be accepting applications till next Saturday. Nasheed tweeted saying that he would compete in the Primary to select a Presidential Candidate for next year's elections.
The Speaker then sent a letter to MDP Chairperson Fayyaz Ismail saying that around 40,000 members from the MDP voters list have been removed without their knowledge.
In a tweet today, Nasheed said that MDP is about free and fair elections and that integral to this is a pre-decided voter list.
Nasheed further claimed that President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has expelled over 39,000 members from MDP in the past year.
He mentioned that while the list needed cleaning up, the President has removed all the original party members less likely to vote for him.
MDP invited interested members to submit their applications before 4:00 pm next Saturday and that the application must have the backing of 500 members.
The Party said that it would announce the final candidates on 26th December with the initial voters' list to be released between 28th and 31st December.
MDP further said that it would publish the final voters' list on 3rd January and that it would allow applications for candidates' representatives between the 10th and 15th of January.
