President ratifies Third Amendment to Presidential Elections Act

President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has ratified the Third Amendment to the Presidential Elections Act (Act no. 12/2008), which rescinds Article 7 subsection (c) of the Act. Parliament passed the amendment bill at the 54th sitting of its third session held on 16 October 2019.

Subsection (c) of Article 7 refers to Section 109 of the Constitution of the Republic of Maldives which state that a presidential candidate should be a Maldivian citizen born to Maldivian parents and stipulates that in the event that the individual running for the office of the President has held the citizenship of a foreign country, the individual would only be able to compete in the presidential elections after 10 years of renouncing the foreign citizenship.

Upon ratification, the Act has been published in the Government’s Gazette.