MRM Officially Dissolved as Membership Falls Below Legal Requirement

The Maldives Reform Movement (MRM), led by former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, has been dissolved.

Announcing the party’s dissolution, the Election Commission of the Maldives (ECM) stated that the party failed to meet the minimum membership requirement under the Political Parties Act.

According to Article 30(a) of the Political Party Act, a party must maintain its membership at atleast 3,000 members to remain a registered political party. Although ECM granted additional time for MRM to increase its membership above the minimum threshold, the party had failed to meet the requirement before the deadline. ECM statistics show the MRM had 1,867 members on its register at the end of last year, making it the political party with the least number of registered members among all political parties in the Maldives.

This is not the first the ECM has attempted to dissolve the MRM. Although the commission has previously made a similar decision, the MRM challenged the decision and filed a case in the Civil Court, which ruled in February last year that the dissolution was unlawful.

ECM’s Secretary General Abdulla Unais had earlier stated that the commission had decided to dissolve the MRM once again as MRM had still failed to obtain the required number of members even after the Civil Court ruling.

Meanwhile, efforts are also underway to dissolve the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM). Despite being one of the four political parties in the Maldives, with 12,174 registered members at the end of 2024, the PPM Senate moved to dissolve the party at an extraordinary Senate session held 2 December. The Senated cited finding it unreasonable for the party to be managed under a separate leadership while its sister party, the ruling People’s National Congress (PNC) operates under similar ideologies and policies.