President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has ratified the fifth amendment to the Constitution, extending the terms of existing councillors.

The bill allowing councillors to retain their seats until an election is held and a new council takes office, was passed by the parliament at a sitting held at 1:30am on Tuesday. While the sitting got heated with MPs pushing and shoving each other on the parliament floor, the bill was passed with 74 votes.

While the Local Council Elections were to be held on April 4, it was delayed indefinitely after the declaration of a nationwide state of public health emergency on March 12. Hence, the government proposed a constitutional amendment to allow Councillors to remain in office until a new election can be held, so as to avoid a legal vacuum.

Despite the amendment being proposed by the government, a number of MPs including main ruling party members were against it. Hence, the speaker decided to seek the apex court’s counsel on the matter.

The Supreme Court also advised to amend the Constitution, but by adding a transitional clause rather than amending Article 4 as sought by the state.

Following this, a special sitting was held on Friday night where the parliament’s Whole House Sub Committee passed a motion to amend Article 231 of the Constitution, as per the Supreme Court’s advisory ruling.

The motion by Central-Henveiru constituency MP Ali Azim proposes to add two clauses to the article, and was passed by the Whole House Sub Committee with the votes of 63 MPs.

While the first clause states that the elected councillors will retain seats in the event that their term expires before elections are held and until a new council is sworn in, the second article states that the councilors are to carry out their duties under a transitional act passed by the parliament.

The act cited in the second clause is the “The Special Bill on Ensuring the Operation of Administrative Divisions of Maldives under Decentralization Policy 2020”, submitted by West Henveiru MP Hassan Latheef. This was also approved by Majlis, with 73 votes in favour.

While Article 231 (c) states that ‘the term of councils elected to administer the constituencies shall not exceed three years’, the parliament last December passed to extend councillors’ terms from three to five years. However, this extension does not apply to the existing councillors as they had been elected prior to the amendment.