The Elections Commission of the Maldives has confirmed that it has today received the newly passed Parliament resolution on holding a public referendum to change the governance system of the country from the legislative house.
The Commission said via a post on 'X' that it would now seek legal advice on the resolution and then decide the next steps it would take on the matter.
The Resolution was passed by the parliament yesterday with backing from 35 MPs who took part in yesterday's session.
The resolution submitted by the MP for the Hulhudhoo Constituency called for a public referendum on the system change from the Presidential system to the Parliamentary system before the end of November.
But after the resolution was read before a whole house committee, an amendment was proposed to hold the public referendum before the 30th of next month.
The 31 MPs sitting on the whole house committee voted to approve the resolution along with the Amendment.
The Parliamentary session was then started and the Committee report on the resolution was opened for debate. But as none of the MPs wanted to further debate the resolution, the 35 MPs proceeded to pass the resolution proposed by MP Labeeb.
The resolution by MP Ilyas Labeeb stated that the Parliament can ask to hold a referendum without intervention from the President under Article 70 of the constitution.
Article 70 (b, 6) states that the Parliament has the power to hold public referendums on issues of public importance.
Earlier this week, the Vice President of the Elections Commission Ismail Habeeb said on a social media post that under Elections law, the Commission would need at least 30 to 45 days to hold such a vote and that the state must bear the cost of MVR 40 million for the vote.
He had said that the most important thing for such a vote is to properly educate the voters on the purpose of the referendum and educate the people on both the systems equally.
He ended his post by saying that holding such a vote immediatetely is near impossible.
