The Elections Commission (EC) has decided to ask the Maldives Police Service (MPS) to take action against senior officials of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) who were involved in holding primary election allowing party leader, former President Mohamed Nasheed to contest.

Commission member and media official, Ahmed Akram confirmed the matter to RaajjeMV.

Akram said that the Commission had in a meeting held on Sunday, discussed on the actions that needed to be taken against the party, for deciding to go ahead with primary election despite EC’s warning. A final decision on the matter is to be reached at the next meeting.

"Today (Sunday) we reached a decision to take action against MDP, for its unlawful activities. We will discuss further on the action to be taken and reach a final decision after going through required legal procedures. A final decision will be reached in the next meeting" said Akram.

He said that the reason it decided to take action against the party’s senior officials is because ‘those in charge must take responsibility under the Political Parties Act’.

While authorities attempted to halt MDP’s primary election last Wednesday, it said that 44,011 members had come out to vote and that 43,922 had voted to give Nasheed its presidential ticket. Nasheed is not allowed to contest in the presidential elections as he was issued a 13-year jail sentence in 2015, and anyone convicted of a criminal offence cannot legally contest in a presidential election or a presidential primary. He has since been granted political asylum and is mostly in neighboring Sri Lanka, where he continues to do party work.