Monday 18th Nov 2024
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Adhaalath Party

Imran Remains Unelected AP President, Complaints at EC

A complaint has been lodged at the Elections Commission requesting an article of the Adhaalath Party's operating guidelines be deemed illegitimate. The article, amended in August 2016, currently allowed Sheikh Imran Abdullah and Ali Zahir to remain as president and vice president of the party indefinitely.
The Minister of Home Affairs, Sheikh Imran Abdullah, and the President's Chief of Staff, Ali Zahir, were elected to their positions in 2011, for the party's second electoral term. This was also the last election that the party had held, and no elections have been held since.
As per the letter of complaint, according to article 44.1 of the party's guidelines: all positions and council memberships can only be filled by an election, for the duration of a five-year electoral term, without exception. The second electoral term expired in July 2016.
According to the letter of complaint, the third electoral term has not yet begun, and no plans have been made to begin the term.
The letter highlighted that on the expiration of the second term, all committees and other bodies within the party, with the exception of the Scholar's Council, ceased to exist. They also highlighted that the amendment made by the party's Shura Council in August 2016, one month after the expiration of the second term, was that of "one syllable".
The complaint states that the Shura Council had overstayed the electoral period, and that neither it nor its actions would no longer have any legal basis.