The People’s Majlis has passed a controversial bill to fine political parties up to MVR 100,000.

The Whole House Committee of the People’s Majlis proposed two amendments to the bill submitted to amend the law. The bill was passed with these two amendments during Wednesday’s parliamentary sitting, with 61 votes in favor and 10 lawmakers voting against.

Lawmaker representing the main-ruling People’s National Congress (PNC), MP for Dhidhdhoo constituency Abdul Latheef Mohamed noted that the purpose of the amendment proposed to Article 49 of the Political Parties Act is to encourage parties to take responsibility in reducing instances of law violations by imposing fines on individual violators.

The amendment proposed to Article 49 of the Political Parties Act states that a person who violates the law will be slapped with fines between MVR 30,000 and MVR 70,000.

While there was previously no provision in the law for fining parties, the new amendment proposes that the party to which the violator belongs will be fined up to MVR 100,000.

Presently, the law stipulates that if a person's name is submitted illegally for party membership, the perpetrator can be fined between MVR 5,000 and MVR 10,000, and violators of other articles of the law can be fined between MVR 30,000 and MVR 75,000.

MP Latheef’s proposal also includes repealing Article 10 of the law, which pertains to political party primaries.

Further, the proposal includes changes to how political parties are funded. It proposes to change the current method of allocating between 0.1 percent and 0.2 percent of the total annual budget to allocating between 0.1 percent and 0.2 percent of the estimated annual state revenue to parties.

The amendment added by the parliament includes prohibiting the use of dissolved parties' colors, names, emblems, logos, and other party symbols for the next five years, and repealing the previous provision in the law that dissolved parties that do not hold a national congress once every five years.