The Elections Commission has decided to distribute the funds that were earlier guaranteed to political parties, after the legally set deadline passed. 

The commission said in a tweet on Wednesday that it has decided to distribute the funds, adding that the distribution would be carried out to pre-announced procedures.  

Ahmed Akram, a member of the Eleections Commission, said that it would file for the funds with the Finance Ministry, which would decide what parties are eligible. The eligible parties would be publicized, he said. 

The Political Parties Act states that a sum between 0.1 to 0.2 percent of the annual budget should be provided to parties. 

The Ministry will decide exactly what sum should be allocated to parties based on their membership count, and only parties with more than 10,000 members are eligible to it. 

The commission had delayed distributions to fund last year as well, due to a dispute over party membership forms and fingerprint identifications provided in them. The funds in 2016 were distributed after September. 

The commission had released over MVR 23 million to four parties. The ruling party had received 10 million, the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party had received 7 million, the Jumhooree Party had received 2.9 million while the government-aligned Maldives Development Alliance had received 1.8 million.