Nasheed's Proposals for Constitutional Changes Intended To Keep MDP In Power

Speaker Mohamed Nasheed, president of the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party, stated that he proposed that the Constitution be changed so that the President would be elected with 30 percent of the vote to let his power "stay in power forever".

Speaking at the MDP National Majlis, Speaker Nasheed said the Constitution should be changed to let the presidential candidate with the most votes be elected. He said that this can only be implemented if the winning presidential candidate secure more than 30% of the votes. Giving further detail regarding his proposed amendments to the Constitution, he said if all of the candidats to secure the 30% vote, the two candidates who had secured the highest number of votes would contest each other in a run-off election.

He said that making these changes to the Constitution were necessary to let the MDP "stay in power forever".

In addition, he said that it was important that the number of Supreme Court judges was determined by the Constitution. He said that the practice of changing the regulations to change the number of Supreme Court judges every time the government changed was an obstacle to law and justice.

He also mentioned that the chapter on decentralisation was the smallest chapter in the Constitution, and that it required more detail. He said that changing the organisation of the Majlis was also important, and he said that adding more seats to Parliament every five years was a financial burden on the State.