Maldives Politics

The Maldives are a presidential republic. A 1968 referendum approved the constitution with an executive, legislative, and judicial branch. The constitution of the Maldives was amended in 1970, 1972, and 1975. The President heads the executive branch and appoints the cabinet. He is nominated to a five-year term by secret ballot in parliament and then confirmed by national referendum.

The unicameral Majlis of the Maldives is composed of fifty members also serving five-year terms. Two members from each atoll are elected directly by universal suffrage. Eight are appointed by the president. The Maldivian legal system is derived mainly from traditional Islamic law but administered by secular officials, a chief justice, and lesser judges on each of the 19 atolls. There is also an attorney general. Each inhabited island within an atoll has a chief who is responsible for law and order.

The Maldives has twenty-six natural atolls, which have been divided into twenty-one administrative divisions. Each atoll is administered by an Atoll Chief appointed by the President. The Ministry of Atoll Administration and its Northern and Southern Regional Offices, Atoll Offices and Island Offices are responsible for atoll administration. The administrative head of each island is the Island Chief also appointed by the President.

In March 2006, President Gayoom published a detailed "Roadmap for Reform" with plans to write a new constitution and modernize the legal system for the island of the Maldives. The fifty members of the Maldives parliament sit with an equal number of similarly constituted persons and the cabinet to form the Constitutional Assembly, which has been convened at the initiative of the President to write a modern liberal democratic constitution for the Maldives.

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