The leadership of the ruling People's National Congress (PNC) has told each government minister to submit forms from 500 new members as part of the party’s efforts to increase its membership.

Some members of the PNC leadership told Adhadhu that there is a fear that ministers who do not submit 500 members might lose their jobs.

"Each minister was told to submit 500 forms. Some ministers are worried because they have been unable to reach the target," a member from the PNC leadership said on condition of anonymity.

President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu aims to make PNC the largest political party in the country before the end of this year.

The PNC is working to increase its membership to more than 70,000 by November, the party's Parliamentary Group Leader MP Ibrahim Falah told a news conference on September 11.

"Our goal is to get 70,000 PNC members by November this year, as the President said at the last rally last night," Falah said.

"When we began this work, there were around 28,000 valid members in PNC. So by November, we are 100 percent sure we will reach 70,000. We will be adding about 45,000 or 49,000 members."

Despite the membership drive with the participation of Cabinet ministers and MPs, only 1,279 members were added in the past five months.

According to the figures updated by EC last week, there were 28,983 members on the official register of the PNC as of September 19. The party had 27,704 members five months ago.

When President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu came to power with the support of the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), there were just 3159 members in the PNC. The party set up a separate office and began increasing its membership on November 21, 2023.

Within a week, 10,000 members were added to the PNC and the membership surpassed 20,000 during the April 21 parliamentary election campaign. Since then, the process has stalled and has now resumed.

President Muizzu has been criticized and accused by some people close to former President Abdulla Yameen for working to increase PNC members. The PNC leaders want to dissolve PPM, former Vice President Dr. Mohamed Jameel alleged.

But PNC officials denied the allegations at the time. However, the effort to dissolve PPM began on August 1 on the orders of President Muizzu and Parliament Speaker Abdul Raheem Abdulla.